Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
We recently purchased an old home (105 years old) and one day half of the lights on a circuit stopped working. They stopped when I turned on a sconce and it shorted and blew the circuit breaker. Half the lights on the circuit went out, not to be seen again.
Hi Rick
One of the ancient wires or connections blew faster than the breaker.
You need a "tracer". That is a tool that you can get at electrical wholesalers and tool suppliers for tradesmen. It emits a tone when it is near a cable under power. You just follow along the cable, guided by the tone. Where the tone stops, that's where the break in the wire is.
Don't be tempted to just bypass that section. Dig it out and repair it properly. Otherwise, an intermittent contact could make contact again during a storm or any slight movement of the house and could cause it to burn down.
Have FUN!
DearWebby
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I had the same type of thing happen to my home. It turned out to be the ground wire had melted. The old homes used aluminum and with todays load it is common for it to melt and break away if something causes a short. The electrician I had come out was resently repairing all the schools in our area with the same problem due to overloads in the classrooms now with computers and such. Anyway his solution was to put a grounding rod (lighting rod) and ground the entire home to the rod. Ask your electrician of this posability.
One of the below answers is probably correct, but I think the real answer is to call in a different electrician. There is no problem of this type that a competent electrician should not be able to find and fix; they will have tools like the tracer mentioned below.
Every time I turn the 20 amp breaker on it trips back off, I am wondering if it's the breaker or a short.
My recessed lights in my home's ceiling trip the breaker only when the temperature is a little colder inside the house. The only thing on the circuit is the lights in my family room, hallway, laundry room, upstairs steps light, and the guest bedroom. We have had the house two years and had no problem until now. Here are some clues I have discovered.
After resetting the breaker the small light on the steps will work, but when I turn on any other light on the circuit it trips.
After several hours and the temperature rises in the house the lights work no problem.
it seemed to start when we had the painters in and the light switch covers were taken off. But even when they were still off later in the day when the temperature went up they worked again.
While experiencing breaker tripping, I disconnected each switch to see if there was a bad switch, but no luck the breaker would still trip.
The only thing left I can think of is a bad breaker, but I have never heard of one being sensitive to cold temperatures. Any ideas?
I wired a new room addition to my house. I'm using the 30 amp breaker and 12-2 wire. Every time I turn the power on power comes to the room, but when I flip the light switch it trips the breaker.
How come?You could have a loose wire or a circuit overload. Check this website for more information :www.doityourself.com/
What could cause the wiring in my house to maintain a low voltage current when the main breaker is turned OFF? We have unplugged all of the surge protectors, cable boosters, computers, microwave, etc. that may have a capacitor allowing for potential bleed-back. We have even turned of the external breakers for the HVAC unit and still have a low voltage current (<20volts) running through the lines.
According to this blog, you may have other circuits running in close proximity that do have live wires: diy.stackexchange.com/
It's hard to say without much more information about the circuits, but it is likely capacitive coupling between closely routed circuits. I've seen over 70 volts when testing a circuit that shared a conduit with a live circuit. Old meters didn't pick this up because they had relatively low internal impedance that allowed the voltage to drain quickly, my good digital has a very high impedance that does not shunt the voltage as fast as it builds up so I see the 70 volts(but is good for testing low amperage circuits). Capacitive coupling of this nature is very low total energy, kind of like a static charge it can't supply much current.
I have a 220 breaker that hums when turned on. It goes to a second breaker at the AC. Then that breaker feeds my well. I replaced both breakers. When the AO 200 a60 breaker is on at the AC box that feeds the well, it makes the breaker in the main box hum for a few seconds and then it trips the main box breaker. Any help please!
Something is not drawing the current correctly. You need a meter to test it, time to call in an electrician.
I turned off the breaker to fix a lighting fixture. After the repair, we went to turn the breaker back on. It's a double one, and when we flipped it, the bottom one goes all the way on, but the top one gets stuck in the middle and sparks. We unplugged everything on the breaker (it's a heavy load - all the upstairs, stove, washer, and outdoor lights) and let it rest a while.
The same thing happened. We tightened the connections; same thing. We replaced the breaker, with the same thing happening, it still keeps sparking and the top one won't reset. Guessing it's time to call an electrician?Yes, I'd call an electrician.
You have a short in you wiring. The electrician will unwire the hot wires from the breaker and measure resistance between the two and between each of them and ground. These should all be open.
If the light switch were in the on position when the breaker was attempted, the problem is most likely at the fixture.
I plugged a small space heater into an outlet in my bedroom. I then showered, dressed, returned to the bathroom, plugged in my hair dryer, and lost all power in bedroom/bathroom/hall.
I flipped all the switches in the circuit breaker panel, but that failed. Help!It sounds as though the circuit was overloaded, so resetting the breaker is correct.
To reset a breaker, first shut off then turn on. Most breakers have a red flag in a window to signify they are tripped. This , I assume is what you already did.
Breakers, on an overload, will trip due to heat (kind of like the thermal overload that will prevent your hair dryer from running when it overheats), and may need to cool down before they can be reset. So you could try resetting again now without the hair dryer and heater plugged in. (the more things you can unplug or switch off of the dead circuit, the better)
If that doesn't do it, look for an AFCI or GFCI receptacle that may have tripped and reset it.
If that still doesn't do it, then an electrician would be needed to determine if the breaker is bad, the wiring has problems or a receptacle is bad.
Good Luck.
I have a 42 in. plasma, a lamp, another smaller TV, a DVD, and a Dish box connected to brand new surge protector. I went to turn my TV on and everything connected to that surge protector went out.
Do you think maybe it had a sudden surge and it tripped the protector or is it the breaker box?Well, have you checked the breaker? Go turn it off and on and see if that fixes things. I do not think that that is a heavy load on that breaker. Are you sure that that is the only outlet that is on it? We have an electrician who often comments. Let's hope he can give you some advice.
I just replaced a fuse box with circuit breakers. Now my stove is not getting hot. It just gets warm. They just put a 40 amp breaker in and it is still not hot.
Time to call in a certified electrician, I should think. That is what I would do.
When I run my two window units at the same time why does the breaker arc/spark? It rarely trips the breaker.
That breaker is worn out and/or damaged. They are not repairable. Replace it, and smash the bad breaker with a hammer to ensure it will never be used to burn your house down.
I have tried every breaker in the box, but cannot turn off the stove top unit. Help!
By Rdm
If you turned off the main breaker and killed power to your entire house and the stove stayed on, then your stove is not on that panel.
A residence typically only has one panel in the house, but confirm you do not have two.
If you do not, it may be possible that your stove is connected directly to the incoming main. If this is the case, it is not legal and you need to get it corrected immediately.
Consider getting an electrician involved and the electrician may have to get the utility involved to get this fixed.
What would it be if you turned off your main breaker, then turned it back on and there was one breaker to a bedroom that was tripped and could not be turned back on?
By Patty P.
It would be time to call an electrician to come and change the breaker.
I woke up this morning to one entire side of my kitchen not working including the main overhead light and dining area light. The other side has my large items and it appears they are fine. I checked my box and one of the circuits had tripped. I tried to reset it, but it would not. It would trip again and it sparked. I have unplugged and turned everything off and it still will not stay on. Any suggestions?
By Joye J
From your description, it appears you need to have an electrician check the problem to see what options you may have for repair.
We had a storm and somehow ended up with a leak in the roof. The leak is directly over the breaker box. The electricity had gone out during the storm. When the power restored only some of the rooms had power. My concern is, could the wet breaker box lead to a fire?
By Jerry
I am not an electrician, however, I would definitely have an electrician check the breaker box, etc., for any possible problems. You do not know what happened and it is, of course, best to be safe than sorry!
I keep getting a buzzing sound from breaker, it doesn't shut down just buzzes now and then.
By David B from Lansing
Obviously something is happening that is not normal. You might try asking an electrician?
We are looking to purchase an older home built in 1994. We had the inspection today and when the inspector used his little surge tool to test all the outlets, not one breaker flipped. The house has power and all seems normal otherwise. The seller doesn't have much money to make repairs, we only have 10 days to back out. Could this be something that is extremely expensive to repair? Or could it be a simple solution? We are requesting an electrician come and evaluate the issue.
By Melanie C
Difficult to answer as there are many possibilities. Having an electrician check the house is your best plan.
I have a tenant that blew a breaker. I reset the breakers, but the power still will not come on to that room. The last time this happened, I replaced the breaker and that solved the problem. Unfortunately, this time that solution did not work. Any suggestions?
By Chris W
The new breaker may have been faulty. Exchange it for a new one and see if that works.
I'm house sitting and was watching TV in the familyroom, it was daytime, and no other appliances or anything were on. Suddenly the TV, cable box, and surround sound just shut off. I thought at first the power went out so I checked some lights, they worked. It was just the power in the family room that was out.
So I went to the breaker box and sure enough the switch for the family room was between off and on. I flipped the switch on and went back to check if that worked, it didn't. So I went back and tired it off and then back on, still didn't work.
What do I do next? I can't reach the owners right now, do I need an electrician to come out? Could it just be taking a while to rest?
By Jessica
Some circuit breakers you have to push them down as you move them side to side.
I recently moved into my condo and I noticed that when they painted the walls the painters went over the outlets so some were filled with paint. I decided to change out the outlets so I went to a hardware store, purchased some standard outlets and watched a bunch of YouTube tutorials.
My first outlet had the ground wire and instead of having 2 black and 2 white wires there was one of each and they were solid, not cut just a solid wire. I went back to the hardware store and they said to just connect it the same way on the new outlet. I went home and did that.
All the outlets run through the same wires. It concerned me though that only one outlet had a ground wire, is that OK? Also I bought the light indicator to let me know everything was connected OK and got the code that it was. Now, 2 days later, with only a lamp connected and on, the circuit breaker went off. I tried turning it back into the on position, but it keeps going off. It won't stay in the on position; what should I do? I am hoping it's only the circuit breaker.
By Carlos from Chicago
I've never seen an outlet without a ground wire. To be honest it sounds as though the previous owner 'got creative' (used a non-professional to wire the condo) and hoped for the best - Carlos, you've got a very serious wiring problem!
You need to shut down the circuit breaker to those outlets NOW for your safety - frankly this is a terrible, possibly fatal fire waiting to happen.
Get a professional, qualified and insured electrician in ASAP and until properly wired don't even think about using those circuits.
Please update this once you have had your wiring inspected and repaired. It's very likely you can charge this cost back to the person who sold you this condo - they knew those outlets were not up to code, they had to have! Consult an attorney with whatever the electrician tells you.
I had to change the outlet in the bedroom because it almost burned. I put in the new outlet then went to turn on the main circuit breaker. It was so hard it to move that it broke off. Now everything is working except for my refrigerator and an outlet near it. Any suggestions?
By Lynn
Only one suggestion-call in a licensed, certified, insured professional, and do it as soon as you possibly can! You have an overload somewhere and by forcing that circuit breaker over you have worsened the situation. This is a fire waiting to happen, no kidding, this is VERY serious.
I have an electrical outlet that runs all my outside and garage outlets, about 9 outlets all together. It has a trip fuse on it and it keeps tripping.
I have unplugged everything from all the outlets and it keeps tripping. I have replaced the outlet, still tripping. The fuse box does not trip; it is working.
I had a outside pool pump plugged into the backyard outlet and the pump kept shutting down and starting when it was supposed to remain on. I replaced the pump. Would it be possible for that outlet to be damaged because maybe the pump overheated?
By Snake from Hope Mills, NC
Pool pumps are at least 12 amp so its probably close to max on your load.
Ria
If a #12 wire is connected to a 15 amp breaker, can I assume that it is safe to replace the 15 amp breaker with a 20 amp breaker?
By Douglas Hansen from Sacramento
No. You need to make sure all wiring connected anywhere in the circuit is also 12 gauge, and all devices, switches and receptacles should be rated 20 amps as that is the current available to them from a 20 amp breaker.
Changing just 5 amps causes more resistance, can double temperature of wire. wires may over heat and cause FIRE! Please get knowledgeable help. Not a DIY Project.
