Bad Breaker

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Electricgrl

New User
Location
Forest Grove, OR
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Electrician
I have a customer we installed a breaker in the panel. The breaker failed and never tripped. All connections were checked, it had the correct size wiring, and the car charger it was on was pulling the correct amps. However due to the breaker not tripping it burnt the bus and now the entire guts to the panel need replaced. I contacted the vendor in which we got the breaker from. They offered a new breaker, but I am trying to figure out why that does not include the panel. Has anyone else had this issue? How did you deal? Panel changes aren't cheap.
 
Is the breaker listed for that panel? Sounds like it was loose on the buss, heat transfer would have tripped the breaker on thermal if high enough, but sounds like it wasn’t enough to trip. Perhaps a counterfeit breaker?
 
Welcome to the forum.

Electricgrl said:
They offered a new breaker, but I am trying to figure out why that does not include the panel.
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Because it was their offer and not your demand. You don't have to accept it. I suggest talking to a lawyer.

Electricgrl said:
Has anyone else had this issue? How did you deal? Panel changes aren't cheap.
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Over the years, but not that I recall with a new breaker. Could one of the contacts have missed the stab?
 
I'm curious... If the wire size was right, the breaker was right, all the connections were right, the amperage was right, what makes you think it was supposed to trip?

I do agree it sounds like it was loose on the bus.

Maybe when somebody installed it, they jammed it on and damaged the stabs
 
Electricgrl said:
I have a customer we installed a breaker in the panel. The breaker failed and never tripped. All connections were checked, it had the correct size wiring, and the car charger it was on was pulling the correct amps. However due to the breaker not tripping it burnt the bus and now the entire guts to the panel need replaced. I contacted the vendor in which we got the breaker from. They offered a new breaker, but I am trying to figure out why that does not include the panel. Has anyone else had this issue? How did you deal? Panel changes aren't cheap.
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If it burnt the bus it was probably loose on the supply side. The loads would have been the same and wouldn’t have gone up to trip the breaker since there wasn’t a fault on the load side.
 
hillbilly1 said:
Sounds like it was loose on the buss
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This would be my guess, the breaker kept pumping out the amps as demanded but the slop of the breaker to bussing may of had micro arching which in turn led to ongoing intense heat which basically began melting down the insulative plastic holding and isolating the different phase fins.

I've had this happen but the customer said he cranked the charger up to max and basically pushed the breaker to its limit over and over again, no blame was pushed, he managed to find a replica gut system which I replaced within an hour and charged him for. I can believe this guy found the exact internal kit of the 200 A 10 year old sub panel.
 
Electricgrl said:
I have a customer we installed a breaker in the panel. The breaker failed and never tripped. All connections were checked, it had the correct size wiring, and the car charger it was on was pulling the correct amps. However due to the breaker not tripping it burnt the bus and now the entire guts to the panel need replaced. I contacted the vendor in which we got the breaker from. They offered a new breaker, but I am trying to figure out why that does not include the panel. Has anyone else had this issue? How did you deal? Panel changes aren't cheap.
Click to expand...
some time back i came across such a breaker and when i searched for its manual, it was not available. On contacting the manufacturer, we realized that the breaker was counterfeit and the manufacturer provided n original one. It worked perfectly. Hence, try confirming on the originality of the breaker so that you might not find yourself in my situation too
 
hillbilly1 said:
Is the breaker listed for that panel? Sounds like it was loose on the buss, heat transfer would have tripped the breaker on thermal if high enough, but sounds like it wasn’t enough to trip. Perhaps a counterfeit breaker?
Click to expand...
If you do not get statisfaction from vendor might want to send it back to manufacturer to determine if it is a counterfeit breaker. We were told st an IAEI class that a big box store sold some counterfeit breakers that the legitimate breaker manufacturer could not identify between their own breaker or ones produced in cheating china until they took them apart. In my 50 years I never had a circuit breaker that I installed cause damage like you mentioned. I always yanked on a plug in breaker after installing them to verify a tight connection. Hope it was not a problem Zinco or a Federal Pacific panel. Can remember helping my sparky dad replacing a few of these panels back in the early 60's in row houses with a 100 amp service and all natural gas appliances & heat & no AC units. Houses were less then 20 years old but had burnt buss bars.
 
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