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Breakers tripping all over the house

wherzwaldo

By wherzwaldo
in Can You Help Me With This?

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wherzwaldo

wherzwaldo 1

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In the last few days I’ve had as many as five breakers tripping all over the house at different times.

 

Started in the living room a few months ago where I had an old UPS. Replaced the UPS and it went away. Then it started happening a couple days in my home office where I have two other UPSes, but my kitchen (on a different breaker) tripped at the same time. Replaced that UPS and it stopped for about a day. Then last night my wife started the dishwasher (on its own breaker) and the office tripped again. While trying to reset the office breaker my living room (on a different breaker) and my son’s bedroom (another different breaker) tripped. I ran an extension cord for the new office UPS into the hallway (on a different breaker) and all was well. This morning my son turned on the laundry room light (yet another different breaker) and both the hallway and office tripped.

 

I’m calling an electrician tomorrow but wondering what I’m up against. These are APC and CyberPower UPSes so they are major name brands. All of the breakers in question have built in GFCI protection so I wonder if it has something to do with that tripping falsely. But I don’t know why other breakers besides those with UPSes would trip unless there is some kind of serious problem afoot.

 

Thoughts?

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9,083

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25 minutes ago, wherzwaldo said:

 


6.5 years - house was new construction. Can one bad breaker cause others to trip?

 

I doubt it, We had an issue like yours, but it was related to one breaker.   I'd be surprised if you had several go out at once unless maybe they were defective ?? Are a bunch of GFI's connected ?  That could be a culprit, and then you have to figure out where they are, and what they control.

The other major issue we had was our main line got zapped by a lighting strike, down thru a tree ,and into our irrigation lines. Half the houses' electrical shut down untill they repaired the damaged main service wire in the ground (they're large gauge aluminum BTW).

 

I'm damned sure no electrician BTW.

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wherzwaldo

wherzwaldo 1

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I doubt it, We had an issue like yours, but it was related to one breaker.   I'd be surprised if you had several go out at once unless maybe they were defective ?? Are a bunch of GFI's connected ?  That could be a culprit, and then you have to figure out where they are, and what they control.
The other major issue we had was our main line got zapped by a lighting strike, down thru a tree ,and into our irrigation lines. Half the houses' electrical shut down untill they repaired the damaged main service wire in the ground (they're large gauge aluminum BTW).
 
I'm damned sure no electrician BTW.

The GFCI is on the breakers themselves in the box. Haven’t had any GFCI outlets trip yet, nor have I had any non-GFCI breakers trip (my box has a mix of GFCI and non-GFCI).

Also, just now... walked into the office, moved my mouse to wake up my monitors, office breaker trips.
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Dewey

Dewey 3,286

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I'm a carpenter by trade, I'm not going to tell you the exact nature.of the problem, only to say your breaker cant handle the load. Try unplugging things and see how it works, the electrician can add a few more circuit breakers to lighten the.load.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

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wherzwaldo

wherzwaldo 1

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I'm a carpenter by trade, I'm not going to tell you the exact nature.of the problem, only to say your breaker cant handle the load. Try unplugging things and see how it works, the electrician can add a few more circuit breakers to lighten the.load.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk



When the office kept tripping immediately upon reset, I went through and unplugged or turned off everything, then started plugging stuff back in until it tripped. Problem is, I’ve done that like three times now with leaving stuff unplugged and it keeps tripping.
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davidg

davidg 4,036

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On 4/15/2018 at 11:32 AM, wherzwaldo said:

 


6.5 years - house was new construction. Can one bad breaker cause others to trip?

 

Was your house built with the chinese drywall that offgasses and oxidizes and corrodes up copper?  Might be something to check out.

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Texaus

Texaus 377

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Did electrician pull the breakers off and check panel bus bar? I’ve seen a couple panels where bus bar overheated for some reason and damged the breakers. Once the breakers heat too much, the contact point gets loose and problem slowly gets worse. I suspect you need a new panel.

If you have a main to turn off power to the panel, it is very easy to pull the breakers off and inspect yourself. Don’t attempt if you don’t know how to kill power to your panel.

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wherzwaldo

wherzwaldo 1

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No trips Tuesday thru Thursday, then the office tripped again last night when I turned off the laundry room light.  This morning I decided to check a switch box that the electrician hadn't checked and found a loose neutral wire behind the switches.  Loose neutrals cause arcs, and this is where I correct myself from earlier and say that I have arc fault (AFCI) breakers, not GFCI breakers.  And in my research online, if neutrals of multiple circuits are bundled together too tightly in or near the panel (which may be the case), a trip on one AFCI can cause another AFCI to trip.  Crossing my fingers.

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