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What would cause a breaker to trip?

Updated: 11/28/2022
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10y ago

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A breaker will keep tripping until the fault that caused it to trip is corrected. That's what it is designed to do. There's either a circuit overload or a short circuit. How fast the breaker trips can indicate how overloaded it is. If you are very close to the rating of the breaker you can actually trip it over time. If you are definitely over the breaker will usually trip instantly. If there is a short circuit you can usually tell that by how violently the breaker trips. If you have conduit you can hear the wires banging around in the pipe. A frequently tripping breaker may also be faulty and need to be replaced - breakers are designed to fail by tripping prematurely rather than by not tripping at all, as this is much safer. This is very often the case for breakers that trip at seemingly random intervals, often when very little load is being drawn.

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Vilma Hirthe

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1y ago
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Q: What would cause a breaker to trip?
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