"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?

Or is it possible that the water heater cooled off enough that it took some
time to reheat after the breaker was turned on? Assuming this is not a
demand heater?

Put a voltage meter on the breaker and turn it off and on. If there is
voltage when there is suppose to be then chalk it up to magic.