Tripping Breakers

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jcole

Senior Member
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Lawrenceburg, Kentucky
Hey guys and gals.

Upgraded a service about 4or5 months ago. Homeowner calls me today and says he has breakers tripping occasionaily. These breakers, always different ones, seem to be in existing panel that all I did too was remove a breaker that fed a subpanel. I also replaced the service entrance conductors that fed this panel. Thats it.

Never had a problem that had several breakers tripping occasionally. I wouldnt think anything ahead of the breakers like the meter, SEC, or mainbreaker could cause a problem like this. Agree?

I havent been there yet so I dont have much more details.

Any suggestions on how to handle situation?
 
Find out EXACTLY what the problems are before you go out. Nothing vague like "occaisionally".

It's winter time and he is probably plugging in space heaters while his wife is using the blow dryer and forgets to mention it.

Tell him next time it trips, call you and don't touch anything.

It's hard to fix if it aint broke when you get there.
 
220/221 said:
Find out EXACTLY what the problems are before you go out. Nothing vague like "occaisionally".

It's winter time and he is probably plugging in space heaters while his wife is using the blow dryer and forgets to mention it.

Tell him next time it trips, call you and don't touch anything.

It's hard to fix if it aint broke when you get there.
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Completely agree and find out what he is doing differently occasionally
 
If he's too daffy to comprehend, ask him what stops working when it happens.

A common occurance is that people turn on every light when they're vacuuming.
 
don't forget the heat factor I had a breaker tripping that had an amp draw of 14 amps on a 20 amp breaker i checked the breakers above and below it and they were pulling around 17 each the heat was transfering to the middle breaker so I moved the breakers.
 
sounds like he had an existing problem and wants you to fix it. Anytime I do a service change that involes a damaged(wet/damp)panel, an old fuse panel or a federal pacific panel I try to explain to the people that they could have a potential problem after the service change and that it would have to be delt with seperatly from the service change. Meaning a seperate charge if there are problems with nuisance tripping due to overloaded circuts. And i try to do my best to prep the homeowner. 95 percent of the time there isnt any real problems but every once a year or so you get a screwed up one.
people will almost always try to get more for their money. Today I had an old lady ask me to make her two new gfis two gangs each. last week i had a builder tell me after inspection that i need all this other crap. Oven line,sump,cen vac and he expects it free too.
Iff all you did is what you say you did then they already had a problem and they want you to fix it.
 
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I generally warn customers that after an upgrade they may experience some of the breakers occasionally tripping due to the fact that I will "right size" the breakers during the upgrade. Sometimes this takes quite a bit of explaining on exactly how spending a couple thousand dollars can leave them with tripping breakers, but I think I have patent answers to most everything they can respond with by now. It can often lead to return visits to add additional circuits and split some things up, which naturally isn't free. :smile:
 
Gotta love it, you lay out the electric in a house, homeowners dont wanna pay for an extra outlet or two in the garage, or an extra circuit...Month later it is 6 degrees outside and there are problems with the garage outlets....When you show up the guys is running a small cabinet company, heating it with electric heaters, wants to know if you can throw a bigger breaker in....Guess thats why we have jobs
 
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