Why is My Breaker Too Hot to Touch?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ย. 2022
- Have you ever found a breaker in a panel that was physically warm to the touch? Have you ever wondered why? In the latest episode of Electrician U, Dustin explores the reasons why any of the breakers in a panel would be warm/hot.
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While many first reactions would be to say, “the breaker is bad”, this should usually be reserved for the LAST option. A proper diagnosis of the entire scenario is required to figure out what the problem really is. Look at the appliance first. As appliances get older/more usage, they can tend to fail and potentially draw more current than they normally would. Especially motors. When motors spin slower or have parts within them start to fail, they will draw more current. And current equates to heat.
Breakers are designed to trip when they get to around 130% of their rated value. And that is built up over an elongated period of time. So, if the breaker is pulling 110% of its value, its not enough to necessarily trip the breaker, but the heat generated for the over amperage will display itself in the breaker. Again, usually reserved for the last option, the problem COULD be the breaker as they are comprised of many moving parts within the breaker itself. And any one of these pieces could have an issue; especially in an older breaker that has seen some usage.
Improper torquing of the wires (both coming into the panel and the ones for the branch circuits) could lead to a buildup of heat and that heat will be transferred to the breaker itself. The current will tend to flow on the outside of the conductor strands and will only transfer at the actual point of contact with the next surface. And if you have a small contact point, you are forcing it to transfer all its current thru a small point, thus generating heat. Charring/blackening of conductors or melting of insulation at the point of improper torquing can be a visual sign of the issue.
Improper balancing of the panel loads can also lead to the breaker heating up. If you have much more load installed on the A phase of the panel than the B phase, your conductors/breaker will certainly be drawing much more load than intended and will most certainly be much warmer. Same would be true of the neutral as it is designed to carry the unbalanced current between the two phases.
So, try to leave the “bad breaker” statement out until all other options have been exhausted. If you get thru the above items and nothing seems awry, then perhaps test the breaker to see what is going on. If you happen to have a spare breaker, swap it out with the offending one and see if the situation replicates. If you don’t happen to have one just laying around, then you could always move the load to a known good breaker within the panel (remove the previous load first!!) and try it that way. Regardless of the situation, always get a licensed qualified electrician to do this type of troubleshooting and testing. They have the experience, tools, and knowledge.
We hope this has been helpful in understanding why your breaker could be warm/hot to the touch. Is there a topic you would like to see discussed? Leave a comment in the comment section below and let us know. Please continue to follow Dustin and Electrician U as we are constantly updating our content to provide our followers with new information to help them become the best electricians they can be.
#electrician #electrical #electricity #breaker too hot #too hot to touch #customers questions #skilled trades #power issues
2 yrs. retired maintenance electrician here ; your videos are great . Helping me blow a little dust off the ole gray - matter . Keep up the Good Work .
I had a service call where they said the Tesla charger breaker was tripping. Got there and found out it was the main breaker tripping. I opened up the panel and checked the numbers and connections. One of the main feeder lugs was very loose. That wire has also started heating up when i was load testing the charger. So i tightened it and checked the area for heat damage. Fortunately there wasn't any. We caught the problem early.
Short story, make sure everything is properly tightened.
I have quite a few more loose wire service call stories. A lot of weak hands and hot/ cold cycling issues out there.
Great info!
FYI, I have had a number of breakers fail over time. It's fairly common. Especially exterior GFCIs, which seem prone to failure.
Years ago, due to a long story, I managed to blow both main fuses (!) in the top of my breaker panel, a few minutes after 5 on a Friday. All the electrical supply places were closed, and neither home center had any fuses that big. As I stood there in the second one, wondering what I was going to do next, an old high school buddy came into the electrical aisle. Turns out he was an electrician.... and he had the fuses I needed in the van. Guys like him - and you - who carry too much stuff in the van, are a godsend to guys like me.
Had nuisance tripping on outdoor gfci for pool pump. Wasn’t sure if it was underground wiring or the termination in the box by pump. It was just the ancient gfci. Replaced with new and never had a problem again.
GREAT info. Your info on loose terminals and the danger of higher-than-normal contact resistance causing abnormal wire and terminal heating, reminded me of something I learned working in the broadcast engineering field when installing a high-power transmitter: For a new installation, always run the system for say, a couple days or a week, and then re-check all high-current terminals for tightness and re-tighten any that are loosening. This tip was an actual step in the transmitter installation manual!
I really appreciate hearing a knowledgeable person just doing a "steam of consciousness" rap about what a problem might be. That's one of the ways you know that a workman has been around long enough to have experienced a lot of different things and is smart enough to understand what he/she has experienced.
Dude I swear this is the best electrician channel so informational!! Thank you
Thanks for dropping the knowledge! It’s cool seeing the cutaway parts
I like your format, concise and to the point. Thank you
Hahahaha, you opened the door. Now you have to cover Harmonic issues.
Can't wait...now, where's my cup of coffee.
Fantastic information , thanks and God bless you
Thank you for this video! It saved me a service call that I couldn't afford. I smelled hot wires in my utility room this morning and discovered my main breaker was very hot. After watching this video I discovered that one of the main lugs was very loose, and the other wires weren't properly tightened either. The lug on the neutral wire was even partially resting on the wire's insulator so I know it couldn't have been engaging properly. Sure explains some of the weird electrical issues I've been having.
Great information. Thank you!!
I had loose connections on a breaker where it’s the screw that pulls a loop the clamp onto the wire. The electrical I guess couldn’t see the loop with it installed on the panel so the wire was jammed on top of the loop and under the screw. This causes the screw to bottom out without being tight on the wire.
Imperfect contact --> generates a current arc --> heating / melting
Thank you for an amazing video!
hi
my name is Ash and I am Master Electrician in Toronto Canda
I love your Chanelle you are the real Electrician
you know some Electrician just rrun the wire
but your the real one ,,,I hope your family proud off you ,
and that is it keep up the good work ,,.,
Ash
Awesome information.
I learned so much in this video thank you
Very good explanation
❤❤❤👍👌👌 well explained. Thanks!!
Thanks for making thos video 😊
I still test but from my experience if the breaker is too hot to touch or exceeds 90F, it's a bad breaker. It doesn't mean that there isn't another problem but that's the initial problem.
Don't forget to use ohms (resistance) for troubleshooting. It can tell you a lot about weak connections / corrosion and integrity of internal parts like a CB
Ohms can help, but remember that ohms is for DC load only. AC loads rely on fluctuating voltage, which means we're dealing with impedance. This complicates things further, because DC ohms to impedance are not a direct translation. Capacitance and Reactance (LCR), are what you need to be concerned with, and if you're not an expert engineer, just use the methods discussed in the video to identify a common cause.
@@paaao I use ohms on my multimeter all the time for testing doesnt matter if im working on dc or AC. you just have to make sure that the what ever ur testing is de-energized
@@ElectricShinn yes, for single pieces of equipment, and mostly dead shorts, open or closed, but when reading an entire ckt with receptacles, devices plugged into them, phone chargers, lights, etc... Ohms is not going to provide you with much info unless the line is dead shorted to neutral or ground.
@@paaao agreed 👍
Rather use amount of voltage drop while under a load.
should of cautioned about staying on the same phase in case it was. a multi wire circuit. very good info dude keep it up.
I watch your videos, your information is useful,, I wish you success
I have pulled Zinscos that literally crumbled when I removed them (or the adjacent breaker) from long term heating (not due to overload). You can't always see the discoloration just by pulling the dead front.
true
Cool video Dustin keep them coming back lol 😂
You’re the best bro 😎
It was the loose connection for me.
Thank you!
One test I like to do on circuit breakers is to check the voltage drop across the poles. If the voltage drop is zero, this indicates a good internal connection. If the circuit breaker is out of the circuit, perform a resistance test using a milliohm meter.
Not as accurate as you might think. Have taken hundreds of measurements when a breaker, relay, motor contactor etc either had no load or small load. Best practice is to take measurements after breaker ,relay etc is under it's heaviest load for at least 10 minutes. Before retiring every sparky had a fancy $1,100 FLIR camera to pick up hot spots. If a single pole 20 amp breaker had a 15 amp load on if would be a few degrees hotter then lightly loaded breakers. And with resistance measurements after awhile know that if I read less then one ohm between a 200 HP motor leads that was a normal reading. Small relay could might ring out @ 30 to 50 ohms.
Funny story, out in the country of NC (overhead wires) during sunspots. An Arc Fault breaker kept tripping, I pushed it off/on one last time and boom it literally cracked and blew up in my hand. Plastic broke, pieces everywhere, black burnt area on one (hand's) fingers. Not sure if that CME caused it but the transformer at the other end blew up/died, and the backup took the load before failing as well.... I blame the spots.
Love your channel. Qwik question, I have about 15 uninstalled QO breakers. Should they be stored in the on or off position? Many thanks
Hey Dustin! Great videos, I just started with an electrical company and I think I've impressed my lead journeyman with the tips you've gave and the tools I bought before I started. I was told I was the first apprentice in since the company started in 2006 to bring in electrical tools on their first day. Unfortunately I missed the deadline for the schooling so I have to wait a whole year before I can enroll in that but I was curious if it would be smart to register myself as a unlicensed electrican in my county? I've heard of doing that and is their any real reason or benefit to doing so?
Absolutely, its all about getting those hours so you can get your J card, and the easiest way to get those hours to count is to get your unlicensed license
If you're open for a video suggestion, I just got hired as an assistant project manager without having an previous electrical knowledge. My first couple weeks I've had a ton of down time, and I've been religiously watching hours of your videos a day to try and catch up with the trade. Wanted to see if you had any tips/ suggestions/ advice on the quickest ways to get up to speed without being in the field doing everything(mainly industrial and commercial), and if you had any advice on how I can become a great APM so I can excel in the field. Love the vids been watching you way before I was hired, and your passion for the trade is what pushed me to apply for this position!!
You should read the newest NEC Code book and Look at online Electrical courses. TH-cam videos are not worth it if you need a lot of knowledge fast but if you have questions about the code book you can look them up on youtube or electrical forums. As for solving the problems the customer or boss gives you, you have to use common sense and take problems one at a time because their is no short answer for what to have workers do for a big project.
That one “stupid” breaker-part saves your ass at times 😬
Hi please let me know what kind junction box should I use for outside? Mounting onto my outside wall of my house Thank
Hey Dustin,
We recently had our electrical service upgraded at our business as well as some work in an addition/storage room project and I noticed today when shutting off a breaker that the cover inside the new panel, over the breakers, is not on right. It's like slanted, it seems like maybe they didn't think it through when putting one conduit into the top and this doesn't allow that inner cover to sit right. The breaker popped out of place when I flipped it to OFF which concerned me. Shouldn't they be tightened into place or is that normal that they just click into the middle part?
We had a lot of problems with this company, which IS licensed and bonded and supposedly has done work for big companies in town and is well regarded, voted one of the best through this thing our local newspaper does apparently... They kept sending us guys who seemed inexperienced and they kept beating around the bush not sending them with the correct light fixtures that the plans called for which they've known from the very beginning and kept trying to cheap out on us with generic Amazon lights, they kept failing inspections.. caused us SO much delay. I really don't even want them to come back at this point after so so many problems I want someone else to correct it. We still haven't finished paying them because we Just barely passed our fire inspection and I was about to have their check written because they barely finally installed the correct exterior lights with emergency battery backup last week. But now this. What should we do here?
What model was that clamp on meter you used at 4 minutes into the video?? That baby is bad ass
Here in the UK, some places have RCBOs which are an RCD and a MCB combined in a single device, some also come with an AFDD built in as well. I'm not electrician, at any UK electrician, are RCBOs going to be mandatory for new installs and any future or breaker replacement in the next regs?
I've got an issue I'm dealing with now. I have a job where the power going down to the boathouse (100a subpanel fed off house panel) is reading 50v on L2 but 120v on L1 but when the irrigation timer kicks on the pump start relay for the irrigation pump it reads 117v on L1 & L2 but if I read across the 2 where I should read +/- 240v it reads 0.00v. Could the pump start relay be back feeding the sub panel when its on? It is baffling to say the least. (I know I have an issue with L2 wire since it's reading 50v but the way its reading when the relay cuts on is confusing)
Fso you are a professional? Thanks for the videos
Hey what’s up Dustin can you talk a little bit about how 3 way switch loops work ?
This would be a classic example of a time to use a infrared camera on the panel😁😁
Do a video on hermonics my boy
I have a question so I have a 30amp for my hot water heater when the old heater was token out it was leaking at the heat elements and water was every where then it made a pop electrical spark so should i change my 30 amp breaker for new one .?
Are you allowed to pull the meter to swap a main breaker for troubleshooting or do you do it live? Here in Florida, FPL doesn't allow anyone but themselves to pull or put back a meter.
Check the lugs in the panel. Check the wires are tight on the breakers. And see if neutrals are loose ……. Or is the meter can gone bad. Rusted lugs or your neutral is gone or bad connected on the power pole. Many many times it was all or one of the problems
Most times a failing / hot breaker will show a voltage drop. Basically, check the amps to make sure you are within the breaker rating, then look for a voltage drop. Only a few volts down, compared to the rest of the panel, will generate heat.... bad breaker!
When I understand is work with various electricians one thing people don't do nowadays you supposed to turn the breakers off and on a couple times to clean the contacts just like an old fashioned or any multimeter the contacts to have silver contacts you have to run the dial around a little bit to clean up the contacts.
Never heard of read that but would not hurt to exercise the once a year. All breakers have played contacts that once closed for not get dirty. Have taken 40 year old breakers apart and never found any dust. They are fairly sealed. Should not exercise any main circuit breakers too often. While single pole circuit breakers are rated s& tested to operate believe it's several thousand times but the 100 amp & higher two pole circuit breakers are only rated & tested for believe I read not much more then a hundred times or so. Have turned off working 100 amp main breakers that never had much load on them due to all natural gas use and would not turn back on.
My main breaker inside home on a 200 amp panel trips sometimes when i run heat pump,,if it doesent trip it gets very hot to touch to point of smelling???Home is a manuf doublwide 25 years old,,it has a 200 amp siemans eq9485 breaker,,,new one at amazon is 350 ..lowes sells a conversion one for half,,??Any idea
Question: I have a breaker that trips after a large appliance is turned off? It happens within 5 to 20 minutes after appliance is shut off and even after it's unplugged. I'm very confused by this one. Any help would be appreciated.
I have a question, how do i charge for a big project? How should i charge for hrly? Is there a book that you would recommend? This is going to be a pretty long project, does that affect the price?
i cant count the times i had to tighten lugs, sometimes 2 or more turns !!! over time... expansion n contraction loosen lugs, n screws......also if that happens look for melted insulation around where wire is landed.
Use a thermal imager to home in which breaker is warm. Also, can incorrect gauged wires become too warm?
Quick question: Can you use ferrules on the mains coming into the lugs? Looking at your example -the strands are splayed out as opposed to a ferrule which would keep the strands tight-In the lugs.
Luv the channel❤!
Marxg4....saw that 2nd leg connection too....and the breaker lug caused it to frey...that's a good idea you just presented using a ferrule!
I've had to change them out to crimped lugs and bolt them many times on 3ph 480 industrial. On a pretty large MCC center , I ended up having to use Locomotive wire to deal with the high ambient temperatures. much higher ampacity if anyone out there is having an issue maybe in a boiler room?
My main kept tripping and hot to touch while running dryer. So process of elimination disconnect dryer still tripping so disconnect hot water Not tripping anymore. Could it just be the main. Tried running both separately and tripped half of the breaker is hot
25 years is not “old” for things like circuit breakers, as long as they haven’t been abused. When treated properly (i.e. indoor panel location, and not routinely cycled as a switch or tripped by overloading), they should last a lifetime.
Had a little laugh at that as well, as it's not very old for a house either. Mine will be 100 years old in 2024.
Yeah, the panel in my appartement is a bit over 40 years old and everything is still just fine.
What if the breaker is GFCI/AFCI, wouldn't tripping potentially indicate an issue with the wiring rather than breaker/load?
No sir. Remember that you are combining 3 different functions into one component, overload protection, ground fault protection, and arc fault protection. All serve to trip the breaker and a problem with any feature would require the unit (breaker) be replaced to fix the problem.
A vacuum loaded down with hair or carpet around the roller (spinning brush on the carpet) might get your overload....no actual breaker nor wiring problem.
A faulty circuit in the AFCI or gfci may be the problem with perfect wiring.
I am not saying wiring is never the problem, just to troubleshoot and find it.
Hope that helps.
maybe you can make a video on what happens in this situation. There are 2 separate 110v circuits being powered by a 15A dbl 220 breaker.
How do you describe this?
Fire hazard, death trap, blooming stupidity come to mind. This is real, i saw this in a customers house that was having problems with flickering and breakers tripping.
Funny story. I'm working in a ceiling by a temp panel for a very big job. I started smelling something funny. I come back down off the ladder to investigate and noticed the temp panel was smoking just a little. So being the apprentice I mention it to someone licensed. They bring over the foreman who just starts throwing fire puddy pads over it and saying it's fine get back back up in the ceiling. But the ceiling is full of fumes now I said to him. I'm not going up there without a mask. Then no one wanted to go back up until the fumes got ventilated. So I got moved to another part of the job. Not long after that temp panel melted and was every other trade pissed at the sparkies that day. Was that a lesson in what not to do? Sometimes I wonder.
Junk plastic too. My 1978 house had SquareD "compatible" breakers made out of something like Bakelite. It got old and brittle over time causing deformation and heating. Oddly they'd start smelling like burnt bacon (about 20 yrs old). After three went bacony I ripped them all out and replaced with the name brand. One-time investment to prevent a fire while I was away.
which are the best brands?
Dustin: "We have specific torque ratings"
POCO: "Four to five ugga duggas will do"
Here is an odd one hoping you may know what the cause is. When i replaced a microwave the new one works when i start it, BUT if i stop it and restart it to quickly (under 45seconds) it will trip the breaker. If i wait about a min or so and restart it all is fine.
What’s a common cause for lights to flickering? I’ve had a electrician come out to diagnose it. He couldn’t find anything wrong, he said all the connections are good.
I saw switch loop on that 20AMP ckt. in that panel .. Hope that was old stock footage or someone else's work. Last I checked and did rezie work switch loops were against code. I could be misinformed.
My 50A breaker gets hot and trips when my Tesla charges at 39A, have to keep it at 35A. Seems wires are all tight. Wire is 55A rated. Besides a bad breaker, what would be next step if this continues with new breaker? Does high summertime ambient temperature contribute?
If it continues with a new breaker, that means it's fine. If it was too hot, it should trip. Those thing are usually rated to at least 60C, which is quite hot.
Thank you Justin for refraining from course language in this video. Sometimes I'm watching your stuff and I end up having to turn it off because others in my house don't want to hear jobsite foul language. :)
Main breaker? What’s that? The apartment I live in was built back in the late 50s-early 60s. Over time we have replaced the original breakers with “slimline” breakers since the panel is about as big as the meter box so we needed to update the breakers to have enough circuits for the apartment. However the only way to cut power is to either turn off all the individual breakers or pull the meter. There is no main breaker.
Check all grounds and neutrals.
Van tour?
Personal experience, running a main breaker at 100% of it's rating consistently for a few years with the occasional failed start capacitors in the system, definitely has ruined the main breaker. 196°F surface temp
People need to “exercise” their breakers at least twice a year as a preventative maintenance measure. Also get a IR thermometer and point it at each individual breaker and check their temps. Point it at the main lugs or the lugs on the main breaker and check the temps. If it’s approaching 140 degrees Fahrenheit or 60 degrees Celsius and it’s not tripping then that breaker could be bad or failing.
i see this all the time with failing a/c compressors....breakers trip and wll reset for a day or two...trip again and so on....
What's going on @0:45 😂 you can't make two pole breakers that way 😭
@3:42 so (i think i know the answer) My mother flipping the breakers like almost everyday to-
"Get the hacker thugs' phone lines off the circuits and keep them from stealing the title to our house"
*smh* [...yes...🙄😮💨I know]
-might be damaging the equipment and bringing the earlier end of life to said components?
not only that but causing a fire hazard because Although One does toggle them 'off 'when servicing devices on these circuits,They are not meant to be 'on/off' switches as in; they are not meant to be flipped 'on' and 'off' on the daily. But, rather, are primarily meant to be electrical emergency preventative safety devices, correct?
Likely want to shut it off before it starts to burn
When running near load or at load it's normal for it to feel a little warm, but it should not be HOT or so hot that you burn your hand, and if it emits a fish, burning, etc, smell, it's really bad and should be dealt with right away, in most of the cases it's due to a point of resistance causing arcing because of a loose connection. It is AMAZING how many electricians out there do a shitty job, and charge thousands of $$$, even Master Electricians,sometimes they are just lazy, ignorant have big egos or don't use the right equipment. Common mistakes with high amp breakers, they are not torqued to correct specs and they might not cause an issue sometimes, because the current draw is not big enough to cause an issue, but one day you upgrade your appliance that draws MORE current, causes arcing, causes more overheating and eventually melting of insulation / plastic, then hundreds of $$$ later for a simple 10 minute fix, you find out the previous idiot did not torque that bolt to spec and once you do it, problem disappears.......... Or spending $5k-$7k for a panel change, when that panel costs only $300 at the hardware store, only to find out a decade later that it was not installed correctly and how lucky you are that your house did not burn down due to half a dozen code violations and fire hazards!!!
TLDR; Call an electrician
Do you mean TDLR?
For the main breaker, yes. I've done tons of electrical work and I probably wouldn't mess around with that without it scheduling a service disconnect with the power company. Most other breakers are fairly easy to change.
Because it’s a Federal Pacific !
I would just change the breaker out. Play it safe
I was rewiring some fixtures in a factory or manufacturing plant and when I started putting the joints back together the wirenuts where glowing. I told the foreman who was watching me about it and he said he didn't have time to deal with it and that I was taking to long changing the fixtures. So that's the kind of shitbags you are dealing with out there.
Let's use a code compliant circuit to create his "dirty motor" scenario.
A 1/2 horse power motor (well pump or sump pump) gets dirty and runs slower.
430.6. Motor current....table
430.248. 1/2 hp draws ....9.8 amps
430.22.(G). 125% but not smaller than 14 awg.
310.16.... 14 awg cu rated 15 amps
430.52.(B). Circuitbreaker must carry start current.
Start current..... 5 to 7 times normal run..
Circuit may end up with a 20 Amp or more breaker just to run when initially installed. (Not normal, but legal).
430.33 nor 430.52 require wire replacement to achieve circuit protection.
Any motor slowing due to wear or interference may now see a motor protected at 20, carrying 18, designed for 15. Hot....betcha.
How many things do you have running at one time? You are probably over working your electrical system. Surprised you haven't seen smoking yet.
Takes forever to answer question
Loose nuts? Too many jokes.