Overheating of GFCI Breaker

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Anytime Electric

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Las Vegas, NV
To whom it may concern:

I have several jobs where we use gfci breakers for pool equipment. The problem I am having is that the breakers are tripping. They are very hot to touch and only drawing 13-14 amps on a 20 amp breaker.

The solutions I tried are:

1. changed breaker-same problem
2. seperated breakers in panel-fixed some not all
3. Increased size of wire to #10 - didn't seem to help

The job is in Las Vegas and it is very hot here, the breakers were installed last fall and were fine until now. The panel is flush mount in a storage room next to the equipment room. I think the problem is the air temp in the room is too high. Please reply with your thoughts.

Thanks,

Phil
 
GFCI breakers do operate warmer than standard breakers, due to the internal electronics. I try to leave space between them if the panel allows it.

Is the 13-14 amps a continuous load?

Also, a flush mount panel wouldn't allow the heat to disperse as well as a surface mount.

I can see that a high ambient temperature in the room might affect them. Do you know what the average room temperature is?
 
Breakers

Breakers

the temp in the room is close to 120 deg F in the middle of the day and has no ventilation. Also the panel is flush mount on an outside insulated wall. Yesterday I tried spacing the breakers apart from each other and left the door open to the room, today I will know if it made a difference. Thanks for the input!
 
Anytime Electric said:
the temp in the room is close to 120 deg F in the middle of the day and has no ventilation. Also the panel is flush mount on an outside insulated wall. Yesterday I tried spacing the breakers apart from each other and left the door open to the room, today I will know if it made a difference. Thanks for the input!
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120 degrees is too warm for those breakers i believe. that room needs to be vented. 120 degrees plus whatever the actual tempature of the breaker is with a 14 amp load on it might cause tripping problems. also you need to make sure its tripping because of the heat and not a ground fault. megger the conductors to make sure
 
1. Ventilation for room
2. If spaces are available space them nothing above or below.
3. Ventilation for the room.
4. Hang a fan in front of them.
5. Ventilation for the room.
 
Problem Solved

Problem Solved

We got the GC to ventilate the room and we spaced out the breakers so they were not in line and no problems so far. Thanks for the input!! Glad I found this Website
 
Anytime Electric said:
We got the GC to ventilate the room and we spaced out the breakers so they were not in line and no problems so far. Thanks for the input!! Glad I found this Website
Click to expand...


Thanks for checking back in and letting us know what happened. Stick around as there is a great deal to be learned here. :cool:
 
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I doubt that the electronics in the GFCI breaker is causing much temperature rise. Apply 120 volts from neutral of the breaker to the input terminal of the breaker with the breaker closed and nothing connected to the breaker output terminal. Measure the input current preferably with an RMS current meter. The power input to the electronics will be no greater than Vinput*Iinput. Based on measurements of a Leviton 7899-W GFCI outlet I would expect 1 W or less dissipation.

Current flowing thru the breaker will not change the electronic current requirement. However, the resistance from the input terminals to the output terminals of the breaker in the GFCI breaker may be noticeably greater than the equivalent normal breaker and this might account for greater heating.

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