Tripping Breakers for Dummy Pool Owners

These are circuit breakers, Whitney

Most would-be DIYers begin their home repair careers with projects like decks and, perhaps, fences. For the majority, the tasks they feel qualified to tackle rarely go beyond such rudimentary carpentry. A few, however, will try their hands at plumbing and even electrical work. In truth, a lot of home electrical repair is pretty simple; but you really need to have a qualified person telling you the safe way to do the job, That definitely rules out eHow.com's Whitney Houston (real name probably Whitney Devine), who – for unknown reasons – considered herself an "expert" on swimming pools. When it came to questions like "What Causes a Pool Pump to Trip a Circuit Breaker?" however, Whitney was drowning in her dumbassery.

What "Houston" did here was classic eHow: although she knew nothing about 1) pool pumps and 2) circuit breakers; she googled "trip" and "circuit breaker" to cobble together an answer. The result? Pure rubbish. Now, a reasonable assumption for this question is that the OQ's pool pump intermittently tripped a breaker, and he wanted to know why. In other words, several of Whitney's "answers" were pretty much useless, such as,

"If any of the electrical wires are connected to the incorrect power terminals on the pool pump, the pool timer or the circuit breaker, the circuit breaker might trip before the pool timer gets power." – Sorry, Whitney, that problem would have been caught when the pool and pump were originally installed. "When two electrical wires touch, the power demand placed on the circuit breaker increases, tripping the breaker." – 1) Don't you know the term "short circuit"? and 2) shouldn't you be telling us how to test for that? "If the circuit breaker supplies power to multiple devices that run at one time, the breaker might trip. For example, if the pool pump shares electricity with a power outlet into which you plug a lamp..." – A lamp?!!!? Surely you're kidding, Whitney! FWIW, pool pumps are wired on a dedicated circuit, just like an electric stove. "It’s possible that the breaker supplying electricity to your pool pump can’t handle the pool pump’s electrical demand, causing the breaker to trip." – Uhhh, dummy, that's pretty much the reason why breakers trip!

Witless's... err Whitney's only approaches to the probable cause are the short circuit thing -- insulation worn off the wires or something else bridging the circuit -- and the undersized breaker. She missed the possibility of a circuit wired with the wrong gauge of wiring, and completely blew a likely cause: the circuit breaker is worn out. Yes, Virginia, circuit breakers do wear out (our founder once had a worn out circuit on his A/C -- in Texas). But Whitney's "research" didn't uncover this information, so instead she babbled about lamps being in the circuit for the pool pump.¹ All together now: she's a dumbass! the Dumbass of the Day!

¹ That's pretty unlikely, since pool pumps usually run on 220V and the household circuits are 110V. We're just sayin'...

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