Since the breaker was the only thing you touched to shut the heater off, I'd
suspect a bad breaker or bad connection either between the breaker and the
panel buss or the wires on the breaker
"James" wrote in message
.. .
Changing a couple of faucet washers yesterday. Cut the water off and
removed the washers to take to Lowe$ for comparision. Planning on being
gone for a couple hours so I filpped the water heater breaker off just in
case sine the water was off. Got back, fixed the faucet, water and breaker
back on. Got up this am and no hot water! Flipped the breaker a couple of
times and was preparing to remove the elements and noticed that the thing
was working again.

Question is: Do these things have some sort of a protection circuit or do
I have a flaky breaker?