Re: Why deliberately shorting equipment to blow breakers might be a bad idea . . .

["dpb" <dpbozarth@xxxxxxxx>]

John, SW Missouri wrote:
> The local news made mention that there was a poor (inproper) splice on
> the circuit (in the attic) and theory is that shorting the circuit,
> while it tripped the breaker, was likely the cause of the fire.
>
> This was early on in the investigation, and I only heard it mentioned
> once.  I live about 50 miles from the home and we had a lot of TV
> coverage of this fire - a real tragedy.  I was an electrician for 30+
> years and never felt this method of finding which breaker controlled a
> circuit was wise, but then I still believe fuses are more reliable than
> circuit breakers, so what do I know ;-)

That at least makes some sense -- see my previous comment.  More than
likely in this case there was a high resistance at that point and may
have well been operating at nearly the combustion point for quite some
time.  The actual action only shortened the time until it would have
happened "spontaneously" in high likelihood if that were the case.

I really still don't see the difference between the accidental and
deliberate short as a fundamental problem.  I don't much like the
practice as it just doesn't seem "right" somehow, but fundamentally it
requires the second fault for a problem to occur.  It may, as in this
case, uncover a hidden fault with bad consequences, but that still is a
fault separate and the event being overt instead of covert is only
circumstantial.