Triping Breaker

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ElectricianJeff

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Southern Illinois
I did some work last fall on a 175 old home. Added some receps, gfci washer, cable runs, phones, etc. At the time the home had a year old 200 amp. service installed, wiring appeared in good shape, no K&T, etc.

I received a call last week as I was leaving on vacation. The 20 amp. breaker that serves the washer, several convienance outlets, about 8 keyless lampholders and a basement refrigerator was tripping a couple of times a week. My first thought was the circuit was overloaded but these trips were only occuring late evening or early morning with little load on the circuit.

I stopped by on my way out of town. I checked the connections in the panel, a couple were loose and replaced the breaker for good measure. Everything else appeared ok.

HO called me this morning to let me know that the breaker had tripped twice in the last week again late night or early morning. This leaves me to believe that the culprit appears to be the frig. but it is only about 4 years old and I find it hard to believe that it is tripping the 20 amp. breaker with no other (apparent) load on the circuit.

Before I run a new line for the frig. (which won't be easy with 12" limestone walls) any ideas what might be causing this? Would a loose neutral in the circuit cause this? I'm puzzled since I havn't run into this before.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Jeff
 
ElectricianJeff said:
The 20 amp. breaker that serves the washer, several convenience outlets, about 8 keyless lamp holders and a basement refrigerator was tripping a couple of times a week.
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Without knowing the actual current draw of each of these items, it still seems to me that this is too much to put on a single circuit.

ElectricianJeff said:
My first thought was the circuit was overloaded but these trips were only occurring late evening or early morning with little load on the circuit.
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When I hear of homeowners reporting problems of this nature, I tend to be skeptical of the information they provide. They will not always know what information is important, and what information is irrelevant. They will have already made some inferences from the available information, and what they report to you will be biased by those inferences.

So I would start by asking very detailed questions about the events. My intent would be to pin down the actual circumstances, the “facts,” of the events, without any reasoning or conclusions from the owner. For example,
? Was the washer in operation during any, or some, or none of the occasions that the breaker tripped?
? Was anything plugged into the convenience outlets.
? Were the lights on?
? Since you installed a circuit to power this list of stuff, and since the equipment was a year or more old, what powered the washer and the fridge before your work was done? Did the original circuit(s) powering the washer and/or the fridge ever trip?

 
conductor pinched

conductor pinched

I ran into a similar situation quite some time back. The HO would call and tell me the certain circuit wasn't working. After a number of visits to no avail I went back on the millionthteen time and said "OK, lets start from the beginning when was the light on and when did it go out or when did you notice it going out?" Their answer was, We were eating breakfast and there was a thump under our feet and the T.V. quite working.
Or last night at supper time there was this thump under the dinning room table and the light in the living room went out. So, I procede under the crawler to cut the insulation away and after a fashion found a pinched NMB that had been put between the floor joist and the sheeting for the floor. A couple of J-boxes, a piece of 12-2 NMB two blank covers and mystery solved. I was a hero that day. Good luck with this. I can guarntee when you find the problem, You will quite looking. Ha.:rolleyes:
 
Why is the washer on the circuit?? Seperate laundry circuit per code. Check the defrost cycle in the ref. Propibly burned out and shorted. It has a timclock in the circuit.
 
Laundry Circuit

Laundry Circuit

Not sure of the problem, but do know that the laundry circuit must be rated for at least 1500VA, be 20A, and be dedicated for the laundry(washing machine) only.
 
When you get there I assume that the breaker has been reset? Are you sure that it's the breaker and not the GFI tripping and they just don't know the terminology to tell you the difference?

And I agree that you may just be over loaded or have a bad refer.
 
mdean said:
Not sure of the problem, but do know that the laundry circuit must be rated for at least 1500VA, be 20A, and be dedicated for the laundry(washing machine) only.
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I agree.......in fact I noticed all the load connected to the washing machine circuit when I shut it off to install the GFCI last fall. I expressed my concern to the HO at that time but it was working and they wanted to leave as is. I don't think they even had washers 175 years ago much less refrigs or code for that matter. Its been fine for the last 8 months now, the thing that bothers me is that according to the HO, "its only happening late at night, when the lights are off and nothing is running".

My game plan is to sell them on a dedicated circuit for the washer, should be that way anyway even if it doesn't solve the problem. I will check the draw from the refrig. with all the lights on at that time.

I'm headed over there Weds. and will let you know the outcome. I just was wanting to know if there was anything I might be missing. Thanks for all the help thus far and I'm still open for any suggestions.

Jeff
 
I'd install a 20-amp dedicated outlet with circuit to the laundry, and another to the refigerator. Let the remaining outlets stay on the existing breaker and wiring. Any future problems will be more isolated depending on the breaker that trips, if there are future problems.

Dave
 
On service calls like this, we first identify the breaker in question, and you need to be carefull, customers can be confused on which breaker tripped, when they call we ask that they do not reset the breaker, until we check the situation. If this happened more then once, then I am sure you can identify the breaker, we check every device on the circuit, including the cables, which can be easily meggered, for faults, it does take some time, but it avoids call backs. Opening at the middle of the system and checking both up stream and back to the panel, is one way to save some time, too many times not eniough effort is directed toward identifing the branch layout, which does take some time, and knowladge of residential layouts. Any work you put into identifing the system layout, will usually have a payback, when you recommend additional circuits.
 
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Jeff, you can simply unplug the washer for a day or two to eliminate it as a cause, and you can also temporarily supply the refrigerator via a heavy-duty cord from (be sure) another circuit to eliminate it.

Since this seems to occur at night, you should check that the washing is or is not done at night, and those eight keyless lampholders may indeed be on when it's dark.

Do they know exactly when the breaker trips, or merely discover later that it has tripped? And did you say it's a GFCI breaker? If so, why, and can it be replaced with a standard breaker temporarily or permanently?
 
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LarryFine said:
Since this seems to occur at night, you should check that the washing is or is not done at night, and those eight keyless lampholders may indeed be on when it's dark.

Do they know exactly when the breaker trips, or merely discover later that it has tripped? And did you say it's a GFCI breaker? If so, why, and can it be replaced with a standard breaker temporarily or permanently?
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No washing done at night...I already asked that.

I'm not sure as to how the lampholders could be on when its dark.

They discover the tripped breaker when they aawke in the morning.

GFCI recep. on the washer that I installed, Standard Square D 20 Amp. breaker.

Jeff
 
Gremilins.....

Open the door of the fridge - let it cycle, and check the starting amps of the compressor. Same for the washer - hey the lights too while you're at it. And look for that irrigation controls for that outlet out on the side... :roll:

Either way an new circuit for the washer - but why not two? One for the fridge too. And talk them into some more energy efficient lighting.... 8 keyless with 100w's? one for that too... Then you can leave that old circuit off and they will find out what's really on it...
 
Unplug & open fridge and freezer and wait 20 min. take amprobe reading (have an apprentice or the home owner plug in the fridge while you are at panel). If the compressor doesn't trip the breaker check the light bulb and socket in the fridge.
 
since it's happening in the night....it must be the refrigerator. Like someone said before ...run an extension cord from another circuit to the fridge.
 
But be careful...!

But be careful...!

sparky59 said:
since it's happening in the night....it must be the refrigerator. Like someone said before ...run an extension cord from another circuit to the fridge.
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Make sure you use a HEAVY extension cord (No smaller than 14awg for 25 feet or less, 12 ga for anything longer) or you may end up buying that homeowner a new fridge when the compressor burns up 'cuz it can't start...
 
The fridge will act the same way as it does at night... anything you need to find out about it can be found out while you're there with the door open. Barring that - I would say there is something else on the circuit you don't know about, like outside lights (Floods) on a photo cell or motion. I've come across situations like that before. Either way there is a lot on the circuit anyway as it is. Possible 800w of lights (Known), some outlets (Whats on those?), a washer (dryer too maybe?), and a fridge... At some point the 'knowns' will all coincide....
 
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All right I had this happening in my home a couple months after I moved in but I would hear the breaker trip while on the computer. Nothing was on and that was not the cause. I HAD A SHORT. there was a wire going into one of the boxes that had chafed and it was not right up n the box but very close so from time to time it would short and cause a trip I could reset it right away and my fridge was back working I tried every thin that you guys are talking about and finally i just had to start at the panel and follow the circuit from box to box till I found the prob.

Good luck.
 
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Compressor could possibly be going bad and an overload is one of the signs. Seems to be the only thing running at night.Doesn't matter if its 4 years old or 40 years old, they can konk out at any time.

If that's not the culprit, then you may want to take the time to check for any loose hots in any of the receptacles. Loose neutrals are not going to cause a breaker to trip but a loose hot that is not making a good contact will start to burn and cause an overload to trip the breaker. Breakers don't trip for nothing and it shouldn't be ignored. Breakers tripping is one of the best warnings that a circuit is in danger.

Even after you find and correct the problem, you should at least advise the HO that separating the washer and refrigerator on their own circuit to prevent future inconveniences. I'm not sure why it wasn't done in the first place regardless of the hassels of installation.
 
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