I came on from work on Good Friday (Apr 2) to discover from my parents that the circuit breaker has tripped after a loud bang of thunder. They tried to reset it to restore power to the flat but failed. It was fortunate that it was still the afternoon and I could go around every switch in the house and toggle every switch off. I know for sure something has shorted and there is no way to reset the circuit break until the appliance causing the fault is disconnected. Had it been at night it might have been a rather tedious affair since I might not have notice some of the power sockets which switches are in the ‘On’ position.

After some time, I managed to identify that whenever I tried to turn on the water heater in the shower room, it would trip the circuit breaker. The water heater was only replaced a year ago and I was rather annoyed that it broke down so quickly. I left the circuit break in the off position and dismantled the cover to the water heater and disconnected the mains from it. I did so to confirm that the fault is with the heater so I can call in the service as it is still under warranty.

I went over to the circuit breaker and it refused to be reset even when the water heater is disconnected from the mains. That simply means the short is elsewhere and I was a little relieved that the fault may not be with the heater. So, I unscrewed the switch from its mountings as it doesn’t take a genius to know that there will be 2 sets of wires going into it, one coming from the mains and the other going to the heater. The only problem is, the wires are laid inside the wall which means I have no way of telling where which set goes to. The only way to test was removing one set from the switch and turn on the power. The good news is there’s an indicator light on the switch which means that if the set of the wires going to the heater were disconnected, it will still light up when connected to the mains.

Still no luck when I just connect only the supply end to the switch. Without the water heater connected, everything was fine when I toggle the switch on. It is only when I connect the heater that it trips again. Since I ain’t an electrician, I dumbly decide that the fault lies with the switch and bought rather a cool looking new one from a DIY store. As it was getting dark, I decided that I would do the change the next day. It was a night without warm water for a shower… but as it was rather warm, it really didn’t matter.

I woke up early the next day to replace the switch, since I would like to get the water heater working again for my morning shower. Changing the switch was a piece of cake, as electrical connections are rather straight forward. The sad part is, it still trips the moment I tried to turn the heater on!!

I decided that this was beyond me and a professional electrician should be called in. As it was Saturday it would not be possible to get an electrician. Fortunately I had 2 shower rooms in the flat so I had no choice but to use the other one for both Saturday and Sunday.

I woke up early again on Monday. For some reasons unknown to me, I suddenly remember that I missed out an important fact when I was troubleshooting. That is – one of the wires coming out of the switch is brown, and none of the ones going into the water heater is. There is a red one however, and that means somewhere between the switch to the water heater, there is some kind of connector which links the two cables. I noticed that the part where the power cable enters the ceiling and it was covered with a little plastic cover. After cutting off power to the entire unit from the circuit breaker, I took the ladder and a screw driver and promptly removed it to take a look what is inside.

Other than the ants that came scrambling out because their nests was disturbed, there were no surprises here. There was indeed a connector inside but the problem is, it’s a little dark and I couldn’t really see how it’s connected and what’s in it with my head tilted in a rather discomforting angle. I went for a torchlight but the batteries in it has gone flat. Fed up, I took my Blackberry Storm mobile to take a photo with flash on so I can examine the connection in a more comfortable position.

I was a little shocked to notice the head of a gecko sticking out somewhere in between. How it got inside there was anyone’s guess and I don’t really care. Suspected that I caught it on photo while it was fleeing, I took another shot and it is still there. Annoyed, I decided that 170cm of male human being has nothing to fear from a small gecko that’s at most 10cm long. I jammed my screw driver into the area where I estimated it to be.

Something rather disgusting dropped out – It was just the head of the gecko and some black stuff which I believe is carbon. There was no blood anywhere and on closer examination it appeared to be rather dry. It suddenly dawned upon me that I didn’t catch it sticking its head out for a look when I took the photo. In fact, it is probably dead since the day the thunder was heard. My guess is, lightning struck somewhere nearby and leakage from the ‘Earth’ wire surged through and caught the poor creature while it was scrambling through the wires and charred it to death. That certainly gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘smitten by God’.

Unfortunately for me, whatever remains of the thrice damned gecko which the surge didn’t turn into carbon remained caught between the ‘Live’ and ‘Earth’ wires. That caused a perpetual short in the circuit. After confirming that the remains are now cleared, I went on to restore power to the flat and turned on the switch to the heater.

The circuit breaker didn’t trip, because I could hear the radio which I left on. I turned the knob on the heater to make the water warmer and sprayed it on my feet. Still no trip, and the indicator on the heater showed that it is powered up and I could feel warm water spraying on my feet.

Success, at last! I finally get hot water for my shower before I go to work.

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