Main breaker won't turn on

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The electron man

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Electrician
New electrician going into year 3 ,my parents are having an issue in there home

The home has a murry main panel with 2 sub panels one in the basement and one on the 2nd floor, the renter on the 2nd floor said they plugged an ipad charger into an outlet and it sparked and all power went out my dad switched all the breakers on and off in the 2nd floor sub but it did not fix anything so he went to the main and shut it off but then it would not turn back on, now both subs don't have power before he turned the main off the second sub had power he was able to tell sine the utility rooms light comes from the basement sub panel

When i checked it at the line side of the main there's normal voltage im thinking the main breaker is broken but not too sure

What is your guys take on this i know it may be hard to know exactly what is wrong from a post but thanks anyways
 
On the off chance he is trying to close the main into a fault, make sure all the load side breakers are off before trying to close the main.

The Ipad charger sparking story is remotely possible but there's a strong chance the actual cause of the sparking, fault, could be anything else. Typically in a home wiring the thing that shorts is a defective device plugged in and not the wiring itself, but it does not sound like you have conclusively checked conditions of the wiring and the actual cause of the fault. That would be step one. Whatever sparked should have some smoke damage on it.

On the off chance dad is not familiar with how to reset a breaker, it has to go fully off and then it may reset to on. I would do it with heavy leathers on usually always, not bare handed. if it does not reset and all the load side breakers are off, try that several times, off to on. If that does not work eventually, change the main breaker (or the panel with the main).
 
__dan said:
On the off chance he is trying to close the main into a fault, make sure all the load side breakers are off before trying to close the main.
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He's a new electrician, and may not understand what "close" means. Or closing into a fault

In layman's terms, you may be truning on the main breaker with a dead short still on.

Turn off all the breakers in every panel, and make sure the main is off. Then turn the main on first, then turn on each of the subpanel breakers.

From there turn on all the individual breakers
 
Being a Murray, it’s probably pretty old, and the grease on the mechanism has dried out. If none of the other suggestions work, that’s probably what it is. The contacts are spring loaded, and they are not moving far enough to latch. Sometimes repeated movements of the handle can loosen it up, but it’s best to just replace.
 
ptonsparky said:
Make sure it's all the way off then turn it back on. Unfortunately for you it may just be broken. Breakers should be exercised every so often to keep things working. Most of us never do it. Even those of us that know we should.

Good chance it's time for a panel update.
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I did , feels like it stuck in the center but I'm just wondering also why didn't the breaker trip in the sub upstairs
 
The last time I worked on one and the main was bad, it was after hours and no main breaker to be found. I took a 100A breaker and back-fed it to get their power back on. I later bought a new Murray panel and just swapped the guts out.
 
James L said:
He's a new electrician, and may not understand what "close" means. Or closing into a fault

In layman's terms, you may be truning on the main breaker with a dead short still on.

Turn off all the breakers in every panel, and make sure the main is off. Then turn the main on first, then turn on each of the subpanel breakers.

From there turn on all the individual breakers
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What is a dead short I'm new to this so thanks again
 
Sometimes you can luck out and find a replacement breaker at a mom and pop hardware store. I’ve found FPE and other obsolete brands they’re covered in dust. And if they don’t know what they have, it’s still at an old price.
 
Little Bill said:
The last time I worked on one and the main was bad, it was after hours and no main breaker to be found. I took a 100A breaker and back-fed it to get their power back on. I later bought a new Murray panel and just swapped the guts out.
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What do you mean by you back fed the 100a breaker thanks again
 
Yep, dead short means she go kaboom when you try to turn the power back on. Which is why even with small stuff i have heavy leathers on, long sleeve Tecasafe shirts, and never stand in front of or look at when throwing the switch. Always stand to the side and look away when throwing it on.
 
James L said:
You find any place in the panel to put a 100 amp breaker. Remove the power wires from the original main breaker and connect them to the new 100 amp you added.

You'd probably have to splice/add to the cable, and working it hot
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Is there an upstream, maybe outside, disconnect you can turn off first?

Question for the forum, can you backfeed any breaker?
 
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