My circuit breaker for my hotwater heater hisses

Turn off main breaker in breaker panel. Remove front cover. Check wiring connection to water heater breaker. Tighten screws.
If that does not solve problem, replace breaker.

Just a question. Why turn off the main breaker? That kills power to the whole house. Why not just turn off the breaker for the hot water heater? You can then tighten the screws safely. Not arguing... just asking.

I'll pop in and answer that one, Jlisenbe.

I'm quite sure that Hkstroud has recommended shutting off the main breaker strictly for safety reasons... ;)

Here, Gpatten would need to drop the entire face of the electrical panel to access the breaker screws and this leaves everything open and an inexperienced person could make a HUGE mistake... could even kill themselves if they make contact with the power strip feeding all the breakers or if they make contact with a copper ground wire that makes contact with the power strip... ya know?

As unlikely as it is that gpatten will get hurt it is real good advice to shut the main breaker off and then tighten the screw. Then gpatten should put the panel face back on before tripping the main breaker and then he can set the breaker with the issue back on. This follows an accepted standard of safety when working with electrical panels... :)

Thanks for asking and as always, thanks for covering all the well/pump questions... great help and I appreciate it!

Mark

Makes sense. I guess I just frequently think of how I would do something rather than how someone else should do it. I wouldn't want to turn off the main because I would then get to reset every clock/computer/vcr/etc in the house, but that does beat getting scorched!