Well breaker trips when using hot water in washing machine

[Laurajt1]

It says 30.It occupies 2 places on the panel. Also my kids said that at one point the water pressure went very low last week. We have a well guy here today putting in a well conditioner and i told him the probelm. He is going to be running lots of hot water and he is going to check the amps as he does. He thinks it might be a faulty pump...but the pump is brand new. He thinks digging up the front yard and replacing the wire would be ahuge waste of money.

 

[DonL]

That must be one hell of a big pump to pop a 30 amp breaker.

My guess would be it is wired wrong, Or the pump is really really big.


Good Luck.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jadnashua]

I'll second the suggestion to really verify what doesnt' work when you either trip or manually turn off an individual circuit breaker.

You mentioned the electrician is going to go from (12g?) to 10g on the pump, but he already put a 30A breaker on it? He should lose his license! The biggest breaker you can use with say 12g wire is a 20A.

On a 240vac breaker (dual unit with connected handles), if you use one of the hots and a neutral, you could tap off of it and get 120vac. If it was supposed to be for a dedicated 240vac device, that device would not be generally using only one leg, but it might work.

There's a big difference between working most of the time, and being right. SOunds like that's your situation, and the error could be anywhere. If they did that, they may have put in some hidden junction boxes, and that can be an issue, too - you may never find where they tapped off of a line, if they did.

 

[Wondering]

I was thinking maybe your new water heater has different(higher) wattage elements than the old one and that might be part of the problem?