Pop Goes the Breaker

The breaker blew.

Not for the first time.

The lab was silent as all the pumps, computers, heaters, and devices on the north wall went dark.

My frustration drove me to reset the breaker to get the ball rolling again. The pile of shit to do was high and the tolerance for failure low. Then, I realized something: every time the breaker had blown previously, I moved things to different outlets to distribute the load between other breakers. The bench had outlets labeled #2, #4, #6 and even a few #7 and #8s. Why were they now dead too? Shouldn't it only be outlets of a common number?

I turned off some pumps and went to the electrical box. Breaker #2 was warm and popped. #4 and #6 were stone cold and in the on position.

The outlets in the lab were mislabelled.

A thermograph showed that only a few breakers were carrying any load at all, with #2 getting the brunt of the use, probably overloaded.

 

Time to call an electrician.