Three years of flipping breakers wrong before a buddy set me straight

I used to always reset a tripped breaker by flipping it all the way off then back on. Did that for three years on every call. Last week a customer watched me do it and goes "you know you only need to push it past the middle to reset, right?" I thought he was messing with me. Turns out I was wearing out the mechanism for nothing. Has anyone else done dumb stuff like that for way too long?

3 comments

3 Comments

torres.blair1d ago

Come on, @murray.robert, you're really gonna die on that hill? Flipping it all the way off adds extra wear on the internal spring every time, and for what? So you can feel like you're being thorough? The manufacturer says push it past the middle, that's it. If you're worried about dirty contacts, you should be pulling the breaker out and cleaning the bus bar, not cranking the handle like it's a slot machine. Three years of doing it wrong is still three years of doing it wrong, no matter how you spin it.

murray.robert1d ago

Flipping it all the way off and back on is the correct way if you want to be absolutely sure it's fully reset and the contacts are clean. Three years of doing it the right way doesn't sound like a problem to me.

cameron_hernandez691d ago

Hold on a second though, torres.blair has a point about the spring wear. In my experience, those internal springs can fatigue over time, especially if you're really cranking it past the detent every single time. The click you feel at the halfway point is the actual mechanism resetting, so anything past that is just putting extra stress on the plastic and metal bits. I've actually seen a few residential breakers get stiff after years of that full throw, where they'd start binding up. Your mileage may vary, obviously, but the middle position is what the engineers design it for, and three years of extra stress is technically "doing it wrong" even if it hasn't failed yet.