Electric Breaker Failures?

[calmloki]

We just made it down from Oregon to La Quinta California yesterday. Unloading and waking up our house and discovered that a number of the wall outlets weren't working. Thought a number of things - bad lamp bulbs, upper portion of outlets controlled by the wall switch, switch off on multi-strip, that sort of thing, but finally focused and checked the breaker panel. AhHa - thrown breaker on the arc fault breaker for bedrooms 2&3. Flipped it but no cure, and no power to the outlets in bedroom 1. Got out the meter and started checking power from the breakers - 160V ?!?. Before calling the power company I changed the 9V battery on the meter first, which resulted in much more plausible 120V readings. Call that a sub-question..

Neither arc fault breaker was passing juice. Neither test button would allow pushing in to test, neither got better by flipping off and back on again. During the last six months load on both has been minimal - a clock radio on one and a modem and lamp on a timer on the other. Off to HD and $110 later I had two new 15A arc faults and got them installed and all is well. Nothing electrical in the house seems to have failed. Brown outs and several power failures were reported in the area over the summer.

Why did both breakers fail? 2003 new construction on the house, so all electrical dates to then and presumably met code at the time. Some sort of massive surge on the ground leg(s)? No other normal style breaker failures, frig and tv are fine, I'm just puzzled by not one, but two failures.

 

[braumeister]

Possibly a lightning strike nearby?

 

[calmloki]

Possibly a lightning strike nearby?

Could well be, any notion how that would cause the failure or what went bad in the Arc fault breakers that didn't fail in the others?

Edit: maybe me and my hammer will open up one of the dead breakers to see if there is something obvious later.

 

[Sunset]

Could they both be part of a defective batch.
It happens as in the example ones here:

https://recalls.justia.com/household-and-office/arc-fault-circuit-interrupters-afci/05-035/

Maybe this article will give you some id numbers to look for on your old ones to make a search specific for you.

 

[calmloki]

Could they both be part of a defective batch.
It happens as in the example ones here:

https://recalls.justia.com/household-and-office/arc-fault-circuit-interrupters-afci/05-035/

Maybe this article will give you some id numbers to look for on your old ones to make a search specific for you.

Good article, noting the code requirement date of 2002 for bedroom application. Ours are in a Cutler-Hammer panel, but not positive on breaker maker. Might be a Cutler-Hammer logo on the breakers, but they are also marked E.T.N. In any case, these don't match the description of the recalled models.

Edit: Good on you for making me actually look: ours match this in appearance and part# https://www.pacificcoastbreaker.com/br115af-cutler-hammer-new-circuit-breaker.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAhs79BRD0ARIsAC6XpaWspRtEKcnPCL3yBsP1JzustDHzEdqcMTJTaL_fNK2ghjG_-2iLjXEaAsvfEALw_wcB

 

[Stormy Kromer]

Our house was built in 2003 and last year I had to replace a breaker at continually tripped under load. Not all the way closed, just enough to stop the power.


I called an electrician and he replaced it. Problem solved. First he checked the heating unit that the breaker was serving to see if that was the problem, it wasn't. He said it's not uncommon for a breaker to fail at 15 years, especially when it is under a heavy load.


Call our local electrician and sleep well.

 

[travelover]

If you are seeing 160 volts, I think you have a bad neutral connection. Get it checked out by an electrician. https://ringelectric.ca/the-dangerous-effects-of-a-loose-neutral-wire/

 

[calmloki]

Our house was built in 2003 and last year I had to replace a breaker at continually tripped under load. Not all the way closed, just enough to stop the power.


I called an electrician and he replaced it. Problem solved. First he checked the heating unit that the breaker was serving to see if that was the problem, it wasn't. He said it's not uncommon for a breaker to fail at 15 years, especially when it is under a heavy load.


Call our local electrician and sleep well.

Sure, dealing with the rentals I'm familiar with the rare but occasional breaker failure. The odd thing here was both breakers failing and under minimal/no load conditions. After disassembly this is the innards. I see some melting that doesn't look like factory on a coil two red wires go to - what it does I've no idea.

 

[calmloki]

If you are seeing 160 volts, I think you have a bad neutral connection. Get it checked out by an electrician. https://ringelectric.ca/the-dangerous-effects-of-a-loose-neutral-wire/

The 160V reading went away when I put in an up to snuff 9V battery in my meter - after that everything except the bad breakers gave me more plausible 120V~ readings.

 

[HI Bill]

Circuit breakers aren't designed as switches, and they have a limited number of on-off cycles. Whether they trip repeatedly, or are manually turned off frequently, they can fail.

 

[travelover]

The 160V reading went away when I put in an up to snuff 9V battery in my meter - after that everything except the bad breakers gave me more plausible 120V~ readings.

OK, but keep an eye on it. With a bad neutral, the loads on both legs of the transformer are essentially in series so, the voltage on either leg can go up or down depending on how the loads are balanced.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

A Fire Marshall would find it if there was ever a fire.