mtwoods65
Member
- Location
- Charleston, SC
Today I ran across something that I haven't ever seen or heard of. I went to a service call at a residence where the customer stated that his dedicated refrigerator circuit breaker was making a clicking noise! When I arrived, sure enough the SP GE 20 AMP breaker was making a "CLICKING" noise. The noise is not a hum, or the sound of arcing. I immediately put my amp meter on the wire of the circuit breaker and proceeded to take readings: the amp meter only showed 0.8 amps. I opened the dors of the refrigerator to make the compressor kick on and the highest the amps went up to were 1.7 amps..
The voltage is constant at 120 volt single phase at the breaker and at the receptacle. All connections are tight. The bus bar is fine, all other breakers are fine and this is the only circuit that is making this "CLICKING" noise!
It appears that after speaking with the customer/owner that I'm the 3rd electrician to attempt to correct this problem. We have changed breakers, thinking that the breaker might be bad, but no matter what breaker the circuit is connected to, it still cause the breaker to make the clicking noise.
The house also apparently was hit by lightning some time ago and it took out his phone/cable modem. He has had an Appliance Technician come out and check the refrigerator and he says the its okay and that the problem is on the power side, which I can't find a problem with.
I guess my thinking is that it may be possible that the lightning could have cause some type of damage to the refrigerator compressor which is causing a pulse back at the breaker causing the "Clicking" noise. However the refrigerator is still working and I haven't seen one draw as few amps at compressor start up as this one. It only draws max. 1.7 amps and the unit calls for a max of 6.5 amps. This has me baffled!!!???? I hope that someone else has seen this or can shed some light on problem. All help is appreciated very much!
Mike Woods
Removed email address, contact via PMs
The voltage is constant at 120 volt single phase at the breaker and at the receptacle. All connections are tight. The bus bar is fine, all other breakers are fine and this is the only circuit that is making this "CLICKING" noise!
It appears that after speaking with the customer/owner that I'm the 3rd electrician to attempt to correct this problem. We have changed breakers, thinking that the breaker might be bad, but no matter what breaker the circuit is connected to, it still cause the breaker to make the clicking noise.
The house also apparently was hit by lightning some time ago and it took out his phone/cable modem. He has had an Appliance Technician come out and check the refrigerator and he says the its okay and that the problem is on the power side, which I can't find a problem with.
I guess my thinking is that it may be possible that the lightning could have cause some type of damage to the refrigerator compressor which is causing a pulse back at the breaker causing the "Clicking" noise. However the refrigerator is still working and I haven't seen one draw as few amps at compressor start up as this one. It only draws max. 1.7 amps and the unit calls for a max of 6.5 amps. This has me baffled!!!???? I hope that someone else has seen this or can shed some light on problem. All help is appreciated very much!
Mike Woods
Removed email address, contact via PMs
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