I would google but my house is so hot, opening the browser again makes
the computer overheat.

Someone posted that he feared resetting a high current breaker when
the device it powered was on, was bad for the breaker, because of
arcing.

I think there was only modest agreement with him, but still, if I'm
resetting the indoor double breaker for my AC, and the outdoor double
breaker is ON, and the temp of the house calls for cooling, could I
stop the load on the indoor breaker by turning off the indoor single
breaker that controls my oil furance, which in turn controls the AC?

Normally I wouldn't care, but the indoor double breaker for the AC
seemed to make a strange noise when being reset, like a few little
metal blades from a tiny metal fan hitting something, like a Chinese
fan that a woman carries, which I feared was actually the noise of
arcing. And the breaker would NOT reset! So this moise made me feel
I was damaging or further damaging it.


But the bigger question is what's wrong with my AC? We have had 5 or
7 days above 90 degrees**, so I broke down and started using it 3 days
ago. Normally it turns off after about 4 hours, even when first
turned on, but this time it ran many hours, maybe 3 solid days,
without stopping, even though the house was cool enough for me after
less than a day, and eventually too cold. (I coudn't see and had set
the thermostat too low.)

Did running for 3 days damage the breaker?

Or do you think there's a bigger problem?

If there were a short in the compressor, it woudln't reset either.
Will turning off the outside double breaker and trying to reset the
inside double breaker prove that the problem is the inside breaker if
I still can't reset it. Naybe writing this post got me to my next
step.

But I still wonder if running constantly for 3 days would damage a
breaker, or a compressor?

Thanks a lot.


(For a while I thought it was the radio control by the power company,
but that was before I looked at the inside breaker.)


**Already labeled maybe the hottest summer ever, after we had
snowmageddon this past February, and the coolest summer of my life
last summer (26 of which were here, Baltimore, and others in NYC,
Chicago, Indy, and western Pa.).