Cold Shock

Yesterday morning, while showering, I found that I'd run out of hot water. I figured that I'd just run the shower a big longer than I usually do, mainly because I'd slept so long the night before that I was stiff and sore. However, an hour or so later, I discovered that we had no hot water at all. Uh, oh.

There is a circuit breaker right next to the water heater (our plumber said that's a safety requirement) downstream from the main electrical box. I confirmed that it was turned on. I then went out to the main box to see what might have happened.

Oops. That water heater is on its own separate 50A circuit running from the main box, and somehow when we turned everything back on yesterday, we forgot to turn that breaker on. It had not tripped; it was firmly in the OFF position. I turned it back on, went inside, and could hear water heating. After a while, everything was back to normal.