ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Broken Prong and Burned Challenger Sub

Darn, Randy - remind me to never work for you. You get the "wicked weird" stuff!

After a while, I think I'd be scared to go on service calls with you!

DougW wrote:


How do you think I feel! The breaker was for a water heater... nearest I cen tell, the breaker malfunctioned internally as if the contacts weren't fully closed or something...

Not many days you think you're just pulling a prong out of an outlet & you end up chaniging a panel!

-Randy

Just remember Zinsco is a predecessor to Challenger.

ZINSCO!!!

[3stooges]Slowly I turn... Step by step.. inch by inch...[/3stooges]

I used to work for a 24 hr Service Call ONLY company, which I will NEVER do again. And, I'll tell you that late at night, some of the customers are a little more weird than thier problems. And some of the problems were real weird!

"My lights are blinking!"
"Thats why I'm here... But Sir, could you put some clothes on please." I've lost track of the nubmer of poeple who answer the door in thier underwear!

I assume the recept. and the burnt 2-pole were unrelated. Was this water heater still operational before you pulled it? I think the clip in the breaker missed the tab on the buss. Instead of in it, next to it. Could you tell? Or was there nothing left of it.

e57 wrote:


I can honestly say I've never had that happen! I have had customers that were so plastered they couldn't talk or walk straight... Another one of our guys had an affair with a married customer for about a year... Then the husband kept calling trying to figure out who he was! A few people have called saying they lost power & only to find out the Poco booted their meter for not paying the bill!

I had one guy who came up with the brilliant idea to test his GFCI by deliberately throwing a hairdryer into a sink full of water! called us out saying his GFCI were'nt working properly.. After pointing out that the drain was ABS & that all he was doing was electrifying the water in the basin & that for the GFCI to operate, there has to be an alternate path for current besides back to the GFCI.. About 50 times!! (He was middle eastern & in bad need of some ESL classes!) I convinced him that pressing the test button was the proper way to check this... On the funny side, he did convince the local Home Depot to pull all their Leviton GFCI's off the shelf! This waste of time was about 80 miles away in Simi Valley!

The 2 pole burnout & GFI were unrelated..
The customer stated that there had been no shortage of hot water so I'm assuming current was still passing through everything.. I did a volt check when I first removed the panel cover & there was voltage on it... Neareast I can figure is the contacts inside the breaker didn't make complete contact for some reason... there were no signs of pitting on the busbar at the location of this breaker.. & the breaker contact stayed on the bus when I removed the 2 pole... My guess is internal failure of the 2 pole 30A breaker...

-Randy

Randy,
Did you by any chance check the elements in the water heater? I had a fuse box that kept burning up (not blowing) fuses. I tried several changing the fuse clips and even replaced the entire fuse box, but the problem persisted for over a year. I finally found that there was a water leak on the upper element and water was running down onto the lower element and that cause the problem. Not sure why, but the problem cleared up after I replaced the water heater.

Randy....I hate you!
Just kidding man . But you get all the goodies.

SteveMc...
I don't exactly know how the elements & things work withing the water heater, beyond the obvious... I took the covers off where the elements are installed & opened up the splice compartment to check for anything that might be loose or wet & found nothing out of the ordinary... The water heater drew 23A running on my meter, so I couldn't complain there either. I did recommend having a plumber check it out just to be on the safe side.
Shocker (Tim)... You have your share of fun calls... Get a friggin digicam so we can see em already!

-Randy