big thunderstorm tonight... one of my circuit breakers keeps tripping but not immediately sometimes every few minutes..sometime s not for an hour... nothing is changing as far as different appliances being used or what not
2007-10-09 17:39:28 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Home & Garden ➔ Maintenance & Repairs
Your experiencing electrical surges and they are working as they are supposed to. Relax. If everything returns to normal tomorrow, you should have your normal electricity back.
Remember those old movies when the storm blew out the fuses?????????
2007-10-09 17:49:20 · answer #1 · answered by PYRO 1 · 0⤊ 2⤋
I had this problem a few years ago. It will be one of two things:
you had an electrical surge that caused the breaker to go bad and it needs to be changed. If so, turn off the main and then unscrew the panel cover if necessary. Pull out the faulty breaker and unscrew the hot and ground wires, leaving them not touching (good habit even if main's off). Take it to your Home Depot and find the correct amperage and breaker and replace it.
or...
you have a wire that is hot and possibly overheating causing the breaker to do what it is intended to do--trip. This prevents the electricity controlled by the breaker to overload and possibly cause an electrical fire.
I would call it a night and turn off that breaker until morning when you can see better. Then I would test with my outlet tester the outlets that run on that breaker to make sure you don't have a hot wire. If none-- buy a new breaker.
2007-10-09 20:24:29 · answer #2 · answered by ? 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You need to figure out what is going on. You could have a short. Or you could have a loose connection where the wire are connected to the breaker. Or you could have a bad breaker. Turn off the electric outside. Pull the breaker and check to be sure the wire is screwed into the breaker tightly, but not too tight. Look the breaker over and see if you can see that the breaker has been sparking-dark or gray marks. Unplug everything on that circuit. See if that stops it. Then plug in everything one by one till it pops. Hopefully you found your short. After that, I need a pro.
2007-10-09 17:45:43 · answer #3 · answered by towanda 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Possibly just a faulty breaker, but also possible that moisture got into a circuit and is causing a partial / intermittent short circuit. Have a qualified electrician check it out BEFORE you have a more serious problem. Between now and when the electrician pronounces the circuit OK, I would suggest leaving that breaker OFF and using other, more reliable circuits.
2007-10-09 17:46:10 · answer #4 · answered by faireminded1 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Is this a GFI breaker ?
Garage and out-side receptacle are required to be ground fault protected.
I would guess either moisture is in a receptacle or something plug-ed into the receptacle causing the problem.
2007-10-10 04:34:43 · answer #5 · answered by greg w 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋