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Electric dryers typically are 220 volts and need a 30 amp, 2-pole circuit breaker. A 15 amp breaker would quickly trip if overloaded with a dryer. You may need a wiring upgrade (to 10 gauge) and a new 2-pole breaker for 30 Amps. You should also not be using two separate breakers for one 220 volt circuit; they should be either one unit or two that have their handles mechanically connected together. Hire an electrician.

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17y ago
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14y ago

If your main breaker is tripping you may have big issues! Don't use your dryer until you've contacted an electrician. Your panel may be overloaded when the dryer is on. The electrical panel in your home could becoming too small for all of your appliances. On a 100 amp service, if many of your high current drawing appliances are on at once this condition could happen. With the dryer and hot water tank on you will be drawing about 40 amps. Putting the stove with an oven on at the same time will boost your consumption up to about 80 amps. With a couple of smaller 1200 watt appliances on you are just about at your limit. Call an electrician and get him to do a load test on your panel, this will tell you what the problem is right away. Don't be surprised if the recommendation is to upgrade to a 150 or 200 amp panel. In most homes today the recommended panel board is 200 amp 42 circuit .

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13y ago

If you're talking about an internal breaker, it's probably the high temperature sensor. If that's the case, your vent or some part of the dryer is probably blocked by dryer lint.

If it's an external breaker, such as the circuit breaker in the house, it's an indication that the dryer is drawing more current as it gets hot; possibly a faulty motor or if it's an electric dryer the heating coil could be distorting under the heat (possibly a broken insulator) and it's touching the chassis causing a short to ground.

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14y ago

It sounds like you need to call an electrician as this could be caused by many things. An electrician will be able to safely troubleshoot and resolve this issue!!

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14y ago

Either the circuit is too small to power the dryer or something else is drawing on the circuit that does not leave enough power to run dryer.

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Q: Why does your dryer keep tripping the circuit breaker?
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What can cause a circuit breaker to suddenly start tripping?

If the breaker trips when nothing is turned on it could be a mouse problem. If it only trips when certain lights or appliances are turned on one of them is probably the reason.If it trips when nothing is being turned on or off something is getting hot. You should then have qualified electrician look at it. Hope this is usefull.


Why does the 59n relay keep tripping the breaker?

The 59 relay is an overvoltage relay. The 59N relay is an overvoltage relay for the neutral circuit. Check neutral and make sure the system is properly balanced.


Parking lights will not turn off is it a relay or circuit breaker?

It is a relay or switch problem. A circuit breaker or fuse won't keep a light on.


Where can you find a self resetting circuit breaker for 120vac 15amps?

If you are referring to circuit breakers used in residential or commercial building electrical systems, the answer is - you can't! What's more, you don't want to!Circuit breakers are a safety device. A 14 gauge wire can safely handle 15 amps. If there is a short circuit, or if an appliance or appliances are plugged in that uses more than 15 Amps, the wires would overheat and could start a fire. The circuit breaker trips to prevent this.The idea when a breaker trips is for you, the intelligent human, to go and look for the overload, and fix it before resetting the breaker. A mindless self-resetting breaker would just keep heating up the wire until a fire starts, defeating the purpose.If you have a breaker that continuously trips, don't just keep resetting it. Find out why it is tripping and fix it or have it fixed! This could save your life!


Why does plugging too many appilances into the same circuit cause too much current to flow through the circuit what will happen as a result?

Each appliance has its own amperage. This can be shown by looking at the label of each appliance. A circuit is protected by a breaker which has a trip limit. By continually adding more amperage from different appliances, the circuit becomes overloaded. When the circuits limit is reached because of the additive effect of more appliances to the circuit the breaker will trip. This disconnects the appliance loads from the distribution panel supply and prevents over loading of the conductors of that circuit. Without removing some of the load amperage, the breaker will keep tripping when reset.

Related questions

What would cause a breaker to trip?

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.


Why does my refrigerator keep tripping the breaker?

The most likely possibility is the refrigerator has a problem and needs to be fixed. Another possibility is the refrigerator is on a circuit that does not have enough current capacity to operate it and other appliances that are on the same circuit.


What can cause a circuit breaker to suddenly start tripping?

If the breaker trips when nothing is turned on it could be a mouse problem. If it only trips when certain lights or appliances are turned on one of them is probably the reason.If it trips when nothing is being turned on or off something is getting hot. You should then have qualified electrician look at it. Hope this is usefull.


Why does the 59n relay keep tripping the breaker?

The 59 relay is an overvoltage relay. The 59N relay is an overvoltage relay for the neutral circuit. Check neutral and make sure the system is properly balanced.


Why does an inground hayward pool pump keep shutting off?

Does it run for a brief period then shut off? Could be a capacitor getting ready to fail. Could be getting hot. Is it tripping the circuit breaker?


Parking lights will not turn off is it a relay or circuit breaker?

It is a relay or switch problem. A circuit breaker or fuse won't keep a light on.


Why does a lawn mower keep popping the relay circut breaker?

you have a short to ground in the electrical circuit that that breaker is on.


How do circuit breaker keep the wires in a electrical circuit from overheating?

A circuit breaker is designed to 'break' in a circuit if a short circuit (or other malfunction) occurs. This prevents overheating (or burn-out) of the circuit wires. In older systems, you would need to find which fuse wire has fused and replace it. In a circuit breaker, once the fault has been found and corrected, the breaker is simply switched back on.


Where can you find a self resetting circuit breaker for 120vac 15amps?

If you are referring to circuit breakers used in residential or commercial building electrical systems, the answer is - you can't! What's more, you don't want to!Circuit breakers are a safety device. A 14 gauge wire can safely handle 15 amps. If there is a short circuit, or if an appliance or appliances are plugged in that uses more than 15 Amps, the wires would overheat and could start a fire. The circuit breaker trips to prevent this.The idea when a breaker trips is for you, the intelligent human, to go and look for the overload, and fix it before resetting the breaker. A mindless self-resetting breaker would just keep heating up the wire until a fire starts, defeating the purpose.If you have a breaker that continuously trips, don't just keep resetting it. Find out why it is tripping and fix it or have it fixed! This could save your life!


Why does plugging too many appilances into the same circuit cause too much current to flow through the circuit what will happen as a result?

Each appliance has its own amperage. This can be shown by looking at the label of each appliance. A circuit is protected by a breaker which has a trip limit. By continually adding more amperage from different appliances, the circuit becomes overloaded. When the circuits limit is reached because of the additive effect of more appliances to the circuit the breaker will trip. This disconnects the appliance loads from the distribution panel supply and prevents over loading of the conductors of that circuit. Without removing some of the load amperage, the breaker will keep tripping when reset.


Can you plug equipment rated for 50A into a 30A circuit?

Yes, with a caveat. The 50A wire and plug is more than heavy enough for the dryer, so there is no problem there. The possible problem is that the dryer is designed to be protected by a 30A breaker. In the event of failure in the dryer, the breaker may not trip as it is oversized. The best solution? Get a small breaker box from a home center and mount a 30A breaker in it. Mount it on the back of the dryer, run the 50A cord into the feed lugs of the box, and connect the dryer feed to the 30A breaker. This way you can plug the dryer into the 50A outlet like you want, and the dryer is protected with a 30A breaker as usual. You can get small breaker boxes or fused disconnects without too much cost. Just make sure the breaker box / disconnect panel is rated to 50A, as you want to feed it off a 50A circuit. As long as the voltage requirement of the dryer matches the voltage of the outlet (which is presumably 240 volts), then yes. The amp rating of the cord and outlet is merely the maximun current (amps) allowed. You're well under that with 24 amps.


If you are building a woodworking shop that will have several 240V tools can you install multiple 240V outlets on the same 30A circuit if only one or two tools will be running at the same time?

Yes you can have multiple 220 outlets, but if you are using multiple saws and start kicking your breaker, do not put a bigger breaker in to keep it from tripping you'll break up the protection inside of your wire, and then you'll have major problems. If it don't burn down. If you do start tripping the breaker you will need to run another circuit. Don't just "get used to resetting it." It is a very bad habit and will possibly wear your breaker out. -- HMM... not so sure about that. Maybe that's how they do it where nobody cares. It's against most electrical codes to put more than one 240V appliance on a single circuit, or even to create the possibility by adding receptacles. The simple answer would be to either add a circuit (within the limits of the panel and service) or to unplug one tool and plug the other in.