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[Jonathan Johnson]

For the rest of the story about my neighbor's possible bad breaker, a real electrician showed up and determined it had tripped at some point and was not reset back on hard enough.

 it looked like it was on but wasn't. I didn't try exercising them all... Glad it was relatively painless for her.  Sad that I didn't catch it, but I have old school fuses in my panel.

JR

It usually takes far more force to reset a breaker (by pushing the handle toward "off") than simply turning it off and back on.

[Chris Hindle]

It usually takes far more force to reset a breaker (by pushing the handle toward "off") than simply turning it off and back on.

I find often that a blown breaker will trip, but not turn the lever off.
Just run a finger across each one, and the tripped one will snap all the way off.
I'm guessing this was a "slight" overload, and not a massive short.
Chris.

[John Roberts {JR}]

I find often that a blown breaker will trip, but not turn the lever off.
Just run a finger across each one, and the tripped one will snap all the way off.
I'm guessing this was a "slight" overload, and not a massive short.
Chris.

I learned after the fact there was an electric heater on that branch. They only told me about the outlets not working. 

All the in-wall electric heaters in my house are wired 240V and have their own breakers in a box outside. Apparently a 120V heater, perhaps one of those portable fire starters.

Next time I will cycle the breakers off/on if I have to deal with questionable breakers.

I'm glad it was something simple... in hindsight I would have probably found it if I checked under the hood but apparently that was not even necessary. So still glad I deferred to a professional even though my initial judgement to suspect a breaker turns out to be correct.

JR

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