Found a water heater short last week in a crawl space in Decatur

Got sent to a house where the water heater kept tripping the breaker every few days. Checked the element, the stat, all the normal stuff and couldn't find anything. Finally crawled into the crawl space and saw the copper pipe was touching the junction box. The vibration from the pump wore through the insulation over time. Took me 3 hours of head scratching before I noticed the rub mark. Has anyone else run into weird shorts from metal pipes touching boxes?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_barbara3d ago

Vibration from the pump wore through the insulation" - sounds like that pipe really rubbed you the wrong way.

patricia_lee3d ago

Man, isn't that always the way? You look at everything obvious first and the real problem is hiding in some dumb little detail. It's like when your car makes a weird noise and you check the belts and the hoses and everything, but it turns out a leaf got stuck in the vent. You gotta wonder how many things in life get messed up just from two parts rubbing together over time. A pipe against a box, a wire against a stud, even relationships kinda work that way too. Little friction builds up until something finally shorts out and you're left wondering how you missed it all along.