K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
I have seen 15 amp breakers that did not trip at 70 amps. Things can get pretty warm at that level. Specialy when holding a couple #14s in your #$@ little hands.
I saw a 15 amp CH breaker that did not trip at 115.3 amps. Not volts, amps. We did a service upgrade and when I flicked on that breaker all the lights in the basement went real dim. I shut it off and thought there may be a bad connection somewhere. I figured that I would see a very low current reading due to a higher resistance. Not so. Instead I read 115.3 amps. There was a bolted short (hot and neutral wire nutted together by whoever removed an outside light) on the other side of the house.
I know an inspector that has a knife that the end (about 1/2 inch) was melted off when he shorted out a couple wires 15 feet from a 15 amp CH breaker. The breaker never tripped. (That was before he was an inspector).