A family member's house was completely rewired in 2011 and has arc-fault breakers for the bedrooms. One of those breakers will not hold in at all, even with nothing plugged into any of the outlets.
Is substituting a replacement breaker the most appropriate first step, or is there something else to try first?
Perce
Swapping breakers with a different circuit might be a first step.
Turn off both breakers ( and/or main breaker), swap the 2 black wires. See if problem follows the wire/circuit, or the breaker.
Swapping with a working one may be the easiest first step.
Then I would use a meter to verify there is no continuity between the white and black wires, disconnected from the breaker to ground.
Before testing with meter, be sure to disconnect any loads plugged into the circuit at outlets, and any light switches to off position.
Better swap the white wires too or you will have 2 bad circuits ;-)
OOPS ! Forgot that AFCIs switch/break the Neutral/white also. :-(
There still be no continuity to ground, with everything on. That is what trips the GFP portion of an AFCI. Anything less than about 4k ohms total will do it. (30ma)
The AFCI is probably just doing its job. Swapping a new AFCI is a simple s tep, but you will probably still have the same problem. In addition to off ering arc fault protection, the AFCI also has 30ma ground fault protection.
I had an AFCI problem this past summer in a basement wired by the the homeo wners. In addition to multiple code violations, they used barb wire staple s on the wiring instead of cable staples. One circuit I could not clear. I disconnected all of the wiring from devices and splices and pulled out as many staples as I could, but it still would not clear. I started cutting the line back until it cleared about 6' from the main electrical panel. I refed the circuit from that 6' mark and prayed. The AFCI held and continue to stay on with everything reconnected.
When an AFCI trips it blinks a number of times to indicate what caused it t o trip. Do you have the AFCI instructions to interpret the blinks?
I think that you need to open up the outlets, lights, and switches on that particular circuit and check for loose connections as your first step in tr oubleshooting this problem.
John Grabowski
A family member's house was completely rewired in 2011 and has arc-fault breakers for the bedrooms. One of those breakers will not hold in at all, even with nothing plugged into any of the outlets.
Is substituting a replacement breaker the most appropriate first step, or is there something else to try first?
Perce
# 1 before disconnecting anything check for Voltage between Neutral and Ground, there should "NOT" be any voltage, then check Voltage between Hot and Ground which it should be same as: between hot and neutral, if either one is off you got wiring problem, get the people who did original wiring to corrected. The receptacle should have silver screw for neutral white wire. and bras for hot black wire, Do "NOT" switch this two.
Once in a while, a simple typo is funny. This is such a moment. I'll go stick a hot black wire in my wife's bra.
Bras for hot black wire, eh?
Are you sure there's nothing *else* on the outlet circuit? E.g., light in closet, etc.?
And, does the breaker feel "limp" as you try to set it? Or, does it feel right (stiff) but trip just as it "sets"?
I haven't yet set eyes on the breaker in question: I've seen only a cell-phone photograph of it. It's a CH breaker with a "Test" button but no indicator light. Looking on line, I see some CH AFCI breakers that appear to have an indicator light and some that do not.
I am hoping I can set up a time to go there tomorrow and see what I can find out. I'll start by disconnecting the black from the breaker and see whether it still refuses to hold in.
Perce
You can trip an AFCI on a sub panel, even with no load on that circuit and the black wire disconnected if you have a ground/neutral fault. (you are still seeing the voltage drop on the feeder)
In John's example, I bet he would have seen continuity between one of those conductor and ground. If you are not sensing an over current, it is usually the neutral. If you can see this on a meter, your trouble shooting is easier than just easter egging random boxes and ripping out walls.,
And I just noticed that in the photograph his breakers have "PWD" on the handle whereas ours have "SWD". What's the significance of that?
Perce
SWD is switching duty (you can use it like a switch) Not sure about PWD
Here is the marking guide, maybe you will have better luck ;-)
"SWD" on a breaker just basically means that it is used as a switch. PWD normally stands for "pulse-width-discriminator circuit" but I have no idea what exactly it means when seen on a circuit breaker.
ple step, but you will probably still have the same problem. In addition t o offering arc fault protection, the AFCI also has 30ma ground fault protec tion.
homeowners. In addition to multiple code violations, they used barb wire s taples on the wiring instead of cable staples. One circuit I could not cle ar. I disconnected all of the wiring from devices and splices and pulled o ut as many staples as I could, but it still would not clear. I started cut ting the line back until it cleared about 6' from the main electrical panel . I refed the circuit from that 6' mark and prayed. The AFCI held and con tinue to stay on with everything reconnected.
it to trip. Do you have the AFCI instructions to interpret the blinks?
that particular circuit and check for loose connections as your first step in troubleshooting this problem.
GFRE that was the odd thing. I did check continuity with my Fluke VOM and there was nothing to indicate a short between conductors. The blinking ind icator light for that particular breaker identified a ground fault so I exp ected to see even the slightest bit of leakage, but there was nothing. In this particular instance, the breaker did not trip immediately. Initially it would trip after several minutes. When I started disconnecting everythi ng the time to trip became longer. It wasn't until I replaced a 25' sectio n of the circuit wire that the problem went away. I looked closely at the old removed wire and could not see anything wrong.
I have nothing to support this, but I think that the use of barb wire stapl es, which had a coarse galvanized finished surface played a part in this di lemma.
I am surprised you would not see some continuity between ground and the black or white wire.
Correction: he didn't send me the cell-phone picture, but I thought it looked like "PWD" when he showed it to me. In fact it was "SWD" after I cleaned off the dirt, the same as ours.
First surprise when I got there is that there is no Main Breaker: The feed from the meter goes directly to the bus bars with no intervening breaker -- so I had to do everything in a "hot" box.
The breaker tripped even with the black disconnected, so I replaced it
-- after checking, with everything unplugged, the resistance of the circuit it had been feeding: 10MegOhms. All is now well, and the new breaker has both a red "Tripped" flag and an LED indicator.
Next to the panel was a duplex GFCI outlet showing a red indicator light, but although it would neither reset nor trip using the Test button it was "live," so I replaced that as well.
Perce
Thanks for the update. I am surprised that the problem was the AFCI breaker. I will keep that in mind.
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