Why does a loose neutral wire cause heat and why does the breaker not trip.?

Question

I found a loose wire in my sub panel, the wire was very hot, almost a fire hazard. It cleared up after I tightend the loose nuetral wire.

I guess what I'm asking is can a loose neutral in a sub panel cause a fire. My wires smoked and were a bit charred. When I tightend up the loose wire, everthing returned to normal.

Answer 1

The neutral wire connects to the neutral bus, not the breaker. Unless the current is too high or there is heating directly at the breaker it will not detect your problem.
Tighten the wire and the problem will be resolved. While you are in there with the screwdriver it may be a good idea to check for other loose wires inside the panel. Turn off the main disconnect breaker before going further...

Answer 2

Loose Neutral Wire

Answer 3

those AFCIs are in hardship-free words meant to experience arcs downstream of the breaker, yet i ask your self if that's sensing this stuff upstream, or diverse flow in case you'll. They were new technologies even as your position develop into equipped, and probably they extremely are undesirable. some thing like a motor contained in the hair dryer does produce sparks and the more recent AFCIs are meant to be a lot less suseptable to that. notwithstanding the bathing device and oven should not be generating arcs, except possibly because the controller board develop into going undesirable. that's why i might want to imagine a better effective try might want to be take the hair dryer into all 3 bedrooms and word if that's going to vacation the AFCIs. The fastest thanks to ensure the Kitchen and mattress room circuit are not sharing a impartial might want to be to verify that the kitchen is on a 20A breaker, and the mattress room on a 15A. that could want to tutor they must be seperate cables incredibly than a three wire cable. Or if the kitchen is on the exterior panel the position the mattress is on the interior panel. If that did not inform you, then you actually might want to open the panel and hint the wire from the region breakers to the position they leave the panel, and maximum probable you'll see them going into their respective 2 wire cables as they leave, and then hint the impartial from that cable back down making particular it is going to a similar breaker. The breaker has a white wire coming off of it, and it is going to the impartial bar the position all the different white wires are going, i do not understand if the breaker might want to artwork in any respect, notwithstanding it easily would not artwork precise if that white wire from the cable went to the impartial bar, incredibly than the breaker, yet i might want to work out the position some you could nonetheless incredibly make this mistakes, putting the white "pigtail" wire off the breaker to the bar, and the wire from the cable to the bar also, incredibly than to the breaker. yet then that would not clarify why they worked nice for years... besides, now you've were given me curious. enable me understand what you discover.

Answer 4

Any wire, hot or neutral, will get hot if it is loose. It starts arcing across the gap and there is where you get all the heat. This is the source of many fires in home and businesses. I check and tighten all the wires in my ckt breaker box about every 18 months. You'd be surprised how many can loosen up over time.
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Answer 5

The neutral wire is the return for your electrical circuit and it also might carry any unbalanced load/s. The reason your breaker does not trip is because the amps being carried by the neutral do not exceed the amp rating on your breaker. Another reason your neutral wire can be heating up is if it is not rated for the amps being carried.

Answer 6

yes a loose neutral can cause a fire if you hate someone enough there is a way to burn your neighbor's house down by tampering with the main neutral in your panel, breakers can't detect a wire over heating so they won't trip. looseness causes heat by increasing resistance which increases friction, it's harder for electrons to move through a loose connection.

Answer 7

The neutral completes a circuit. If it is not well connected it offers greater resistance to the flow of electrons, creates heat; apparently not enough heat to trip the breaker. Connect it well, plenty of conductor to carry the current, less heat.