Been working fine all day. Neglected to mention it is not yet a year old.
Put a voltmeter on the contacts and am getting good readings. Haven't
touched the breaker yet - next time I do it will be to replace it. I do seem
to remember hearing a "what was that" when I flipped it back on the first
time.

I know it is not necessary to shut the heater down unless the tank can drain
but I do. My first lesson when I moved away from home - the landlord handed
me the key and said "DO NOT turn on the power until I can get down there and
turn on the water"....He really should have explained that better







"Jeff Wisnia" wrote in message
...
James wrote:
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?



Remember this:

"Troubles which go away by themselves usually come back by themselves."

If the problem does come back, and you have a voltmeter or test lamp and
the requisite knowledge and skill to avoid electrocuting yourself, take
the access cover off the water heater, and see if there's voltage on the
power input terminals, from line to line and from each line to neutral,
before you go near the breaker panel.

That'll bifurcate the problem and tell you where to look next.

Personally, I'd vote for a "touchy" breaker or its connections.

It may have been unecessary to kill power to the water heater for that
short time. I understand you were thinking about the possibility of the
heater getting emptied and the elements burning out because the water
was shut off and someone started opening faucets.

Is your plumbing setup such that the locations of the water heater and
faucets or appliances could let that occur?

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented."