Quote:
Originally Posted by sarahama
[snip]We do have a social service program here "Hand", but I'm concerned contacting them will cause a non-renewal of my lease at the end of this month. I may contact them regardless because I'm concerned about a possible electric problem causing this. If I turn my water heater breaker on while the washer and dryer are in use, the breaker for the dryer automatically trips off. Is this an indication of something dangerous?[snip]
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sarahama
I am not a licensed electrician. Is your water heater 240 volt? You can usually tell by the size of the breaker. The breakers for the dryer and water heater are probably twice as high as the breakers for lights and outlets.
It sounds to me like the circuit for the dryer and water heater are "split". Bottom line they are wired incorrectly. One phase of the water heater circuit may be wired to the dryer and keeping one part of the heating element active at all times the breaker is on. One phase of the dryer circuit may be wired to the water heater circuit.
You can try investigating this further yourself but I urge extreme caution as there may be voltage where there shouldn't be, such as on the dryer frame or body. Some interesting experiments would be to see if the dryer feels hot or warm after it's been off for a while, see if it will run and heat up with the water heater breaker off and to see if turning the dryer breaker off has any effect on the water heater operation.
If my hypothesis is true, having voltage on the dryer element 24/7 would use a lot of electricity.
Based on what you said above about the dryer breaker tripping when you shut off or turn on the water heater breaker, that is justification to demand the landlord bring in a licensed electrician. Something is not right.