jfincherok
Member
- Location
- Oklahoma City, OK USA
Hello all. This is my first post. I've gleaned a lot of good information off this forum to help me solve a problem but I can't seem to fix it. I'm a home builder and between my electrician and I, we've pretty much run out of ideas. I'm in search of ideas.
I have a homeowner who, to my knowledge, had no significant AFCI tripping problems until about 5 months after moving in. Since then (about 8 months), they have had numerous nuisance tripping problems with 3 circuits in particular. The tripping seems to occur intermittently. If it were immediate, it would likely be easier to find the problem. The information from the homeowner to help us trouble shoot has been spotty to say the least. The load center and breakers are from CH.
We have tested and tried many things including insulation resistance testing on line, neutral and ground, remaking all the connections, voltage and current testing (the highest measured current with everything on was 12 amps), replacing the breakers, running extention cords from a non-AFCI circuit to everything plugged into the circuits (which resulted in no tripping for 2-3 weeks). The power utility has been out there and said no problems on their end. We recently put in a pricey whole house surge protector in the panel. I'm pretty sure all the home runs are on 12/2 so there shouldn't be any shared neutral problems. My contractor is pretty good but I've even hired a different one to check things out just to have a new set of eyes. The problem still persists and I'm sure a lawsuit is around the corner.
The theater circuit had the theater lights and plugs, 5 pendant lights in the kitchen, exterior outlet for heat tape (on the irrigation system), and mechanical closet with tankless (gas) water heater and doorbell transformer. We ran a separate dedicated circuit for the theater equipment and a separate dedicated circuit for the mechanical closet. We replaced the heat tape but since it's warmer now, it's not even plugged in. The breaker still trips.
The study circuit has all the outlets in the study, lights in the study and entry and about 5 exterior lights. We've replaced all the CFLs with incandescents for now.
The other circuit has the remainder of the kitchen lights, utility room light, garage lights and I think that's all. Again, we've replaced the CFLs with incandescents.
It seems that when one breaker trips, the others trip also; sometimes with a slight delay. Since the information from the homeowner is spotty I don't know if it is this way all the time. It seems like the fault code at the breaker is frequently a "1" which means a low current "series" arc.
My thoughts on what else the cause could be are as follows:
1. Problems from the utility provider. I don't even know if this will cause a breaker to trip. If so, is there a monitor that will record voltage, current, etc. in real time that we can go back and look at when a breaker trips?
2. All circuits seem to have at least one exterior light or outlet. Perhaps moisture gets in intermittently?
3. Faulty load center? Seems like not much could go wrong there, but is it possible?
4. Something the homeowner is plugging in. I know this is highly possible, but on 3 or more separate circuits? And why would that cause all of them to trip around the same timeframe.
5. Some kind of series arc caused by a loose connection in a fixture. Perhaps a loose wire in a fixture only arcs when there's a vibration from a door closing or high winds? If so, it would seem strange to have that on so many circuits and again, why would it cause multiple circuits to go at the same time?
I know this is long and god bless anyone who gets through this novel and comes up with some good ideas. At this point, I'm happy to turn this over to an expert who knows more than I've learned about this to help me out. Any ideas where I could find such a person in Oklahoma? Thanks for any input!
I have a homeowner who, to my knowledge, had no significant AFCI tripping problems until about 5 months after moving in. Since then (about 8 months), they have had numerous nuisance tripping problems with 3 circuits in particular. The tripping seems to occur intermittently. If it were immediate, it would likely be easier to find the problem. The information from the homeowner to help us trouble shoot has been spotty to say the least. The load center and breakers are from CH.
We have tested and tried many things including insulation resistance testing on line, neutral and ground, remaking all the connections, voltage and current testing (the highest measured current with everything on was 12 amps), replacing the breakers, running extention cords from a non-AFCI circuit to everything plugged into the circuits (which resulted in no tripping for 2-3 weeks). The power utility has been out there and said no problems on their end. We recently put in a pricey whole house surge protector in the panel. I'm pretty sure all the home runs are on 12/2 so there shouldn't be any shared neutral problems. My contractor is pretty good but I've even hired a different one to check things out just to have a new set of eyes. The problem still persists and I'm sure a lawsuit is around the corner.
The theater circuit had the theater lights and plugs, 5 pendant lights in the kitchen, exterior outlet for heat tape (on the irrigation system), and mechanical closet with tankless (gas) water heater and doorbell transformer. We ran a separate dedicated circuit for the theater equipment and a separate dedicated circuit for the mechanical closet. We replaced the heat tape but since it's warmer now, it's not even plugged in. The breaker still trips.
The study circuit has all the outlets in the study, lights in the study and entry and about 5 exterior lights. We've replaced all the CFLs with incandescents for now.
The other circuit has the remainder of the kitchen lights, utility room light, garage lights and I think that's all. Again, we've replaced the CFLs with incandescents.
It seems that when one breaker trips, the others trip also; sometimes with a slight delay. Since the information from the homeowner is spotty I don't know if it is this way all the time. It seems like the fault code at the breaker is frequently a "1" which means a low current "series" arc.
My thoughts on what else the cause could be are as follows:
1. Problems from the utility provider. I don't even know if this will cause a breaker to trip. If so, is there a monitor that will record voltage, current, etc. in real time that we can go back and look at when a breaker trips?
2. All circuits seem to have at least one exterior light or outlet. Perhaps moisture gets in intermittently?
3. Faulty load center? Seems like not much could go wrong there, but is it possible?
4. Something the homeowner is plugging in. I know this is highly possible, but on 3 or more separate circuits? And why would that cause all of them to trip around the same timeframe.
5. Some kind of series arc caused by a loose connection in a fixture. Perhaps a loose wire in a fixture only arcs when there's a vibration from a door closing or high winds? If so, it would seem strange to have that on so many circuits and again, why would it cause multiple circuits to go at the same time?
I know this is long and god bless anyone who gets through this novel and comes up with some good ideas. At this point, I'm happy to turn this over to an expert who knows more than I've learned about this to help me out. Any ideas where I could find such a person in Oklahoma? Thanks for any input!