Well this happened today

[BlueSkyHigh]

Phew.
For a moment there I thought you meant I have to go around once a year sticking a fork in every outlet to confirm the breaker trips.

I once had my mother "test" a nine-volt battery for me by putting her tongue across her outstretched tongue. I was "grounded" for a week after that.

 

[Ferdinand]

I once had my mother "test" a nine-volt battery for me by putting her tongue across her outstretched tongue. I was "grounded" for a week after that.

Ha! "Grounded". I see what you did there.

I did the nine-volt battery-on-tongue test on my kids.

You can certainly feel the buzz from just a little nine-volt battery. Now imagine how much worse a shock of 120 volts would feel from any wall outlet or extension cord !

They never went near any electrical outlets after that.

 

[BlueSkyHigh]

Speaking of "shocking", I am looking at a new TOTO MW7463056CSMGA#01 Drake WASHLET+ Two-Piece Elongated Dual Flush 1.6 and 0.8 GPF DYNAMAX TORNADO FLUSH Toilet with Auto Flush S550e Bidet Seat, Cotton White, that plugs into the wall. Have there been any occurrences of being rudely awakened while sitting down for a morning “constitutional” with or without the bidet function?

 

[wpns]

High resistances (loose connections, or badly pitted contacts) can generate heat without drawing enough power to trip the breaker, I'd say your breaker is fine, and when the motor locked up, some high resistance in the switch heated up. It's never just one thing!

 

[Moosestang]

looking around online it seems i definitely got the shaft. I will call around and get quotes next time even if the wife has to go a few days without a shower. This is why people fix stuff on their own.

 

[Moosestang]

High resistances (loose connections, or badly pitted contacts) can generate heat without drawing enough power to trip the breaker, I'd say your breaker is fine, and when the motor locked up, some high resistance in the switch heated up. It's never just one thing!

Even with a new pressure switch on the old pump the breaker never tripped. pump didn't run and it is shorted to ground so that 240v had to be going to ground. why wouldn't this trip the breaker?

 

[BlueSkyHigh]

Even with a new pressure switch on the old pump the breaker never tripped. pump didn't run and it is shorted to ground so that 240v had to be going to ground. why wouldn't this trip the breaker?

Ohm’s law says that I (current) equals E (voltage) divided by R (resistance) so either it isn’t really shorted to ground or the voltage drops to a value that doesn’t pull the current necessary to pop the breaker. Do you have a volt/ohm meter to measure what you’ve got?

 

[Moosestang]

Ohm’s law says that I (current) equals E (voltage) divided by R (resistance) so either it isn’t really shorted to ground or the voltage drops to a value that doesn’t pull the current necessary to pop the breaker. Do you have a volt/ohm meter to measure what you’ve got?

Yes, i even have a meter that can show amperage. I should have put it on one of the breaker wires when he hooked up the new pressure switch just to see how many amps it was drawing, too late now as the old pump is sitting on my back porch. It's a 3 wire pump and all three wires show continuity to the steel case.

 

[Moosestang]

Oh, i'm pretty sure we drank the last bit of life the old pump had left. our water got cloudy all of the sudden a few days before it completely quit, then it just started to clear up, then the fire happened.

 

[cliffyk]

Ohm’s law says that I (current) equals E (voltage) divided by R (resistance) so either it isn’t really shorted to ground or the voltage drops to a value that doesn’t pull the current necessary to pop the breaker. Do you have a volt/ohm meter to measure what you’ve got?

We were taught many years ago in shop class to remember that as "an Indian saw an Eagle over a Rock"...

 

[havasu]

I love those shop class tricks!