A circuit breaker is an important device that helps keep your house safe from any electrical fire breakouts. The device’s sole purpose is to cut off the electric supply into your house wires whenever it detects a higher electric current flow.
There are three types of wires that go into making your home’s wiring- a hot wire, a ground wire, and a neutral wire. The hot wire is the one that conducts electric current. Under normal circumstances, the neutral wire and the hot wire never touch each other, facilitating the passage of electric current through the device. This allows a high-level resistance to keep the electric voltage at safer levels. The resistance reduces dramatically when both the hot and neutral wires come in contact. Such an instance causes the flow of current and voltage to increase above normal levels, and the chances of fire breakouts increase. Here the circuit breaker will trip, causing a halt in the electricity flow.
Always go for trusted circuit breakers like the CHINT circuit breaker that will keep your home safe from short circuits and fire breakouts. Sometimes, the tripping of circuit breakers becomes quite frequent, and people find it difficult to understand the reason. Following are five reasons as to why you may be suffering from frequent circuit breaker tripping in recent times.
Fault with the Ground
The ground plays an important role in the electricity conduction at your house. Sometimes, the prevailing environmental factors create an unwanted path for your electricity wires to pass. The electricity is more likely to pass through a conductive surface if the hot wire passes through it. Such an instance may occur when the hot wire ends up becoming loose and strikes against some infrastructure or if water finds its way into the electric system.
A circuit breaker can detect any loss of resistance and increase electricity flow. Thus, it trips off immediately to counter short circuit or ground faults. Here, constant tripping off can suggest prevailing ground faults.
Short Circuit
A small short circuit is more than enough to burn your house to ashes. The connection between a live wire and a neutral wire can cause a short circuit, where a huge amount of electric current will pass into the other wire. The circuit breaker will trip to avoid the extra current passing through. If you lift the circuit breaker only to trip down again, your home electrical wires have a short circuit running through.
Excessive Load on the Circuit
Sometimes you use appliances that require way more electric current from the mains. Consequently, the circuit breaker is more likely to trip down when you use all such heavy appliances together. The reason for this trip is that you are drawing more current than stipulated as the limit. In such a scenario, ensure that you do not use all the heavy appliances together. Cumulative use puts high pressure on the electric wires and can cause a massive fire accident. If you find the circuit tripping, consider off-loading the electrical current pressure on the wires by turning off a few appliances.
ARC Fault
ARC faults find their resurgence during the early stages of a major electrical problem. In such scenarios, AFCI breakers are more prevalent, as they cut off the electric supply whenever there is some spark or electrical arc in the wires. The AFCI breakers trip down to prevent any huge fire accident or irreversible electrical circuit failure.
Default or Damaged Breakers
Not every time your circuit breaker trips can you blame the overflowing electric current. Sometimes the circuit breakers themselves might have some default or are on the path of damage. Provided you fail to flip the breaker up or the electric supply is still off after reflipping, your breaker is at fault. Under such circumstances, consider changing the circuit breakers. Damaged circuit breakers can be a huge threat to your household as the protective barrier is non-existent.
Now that you know why your circuit breakers are tripping, consider testing the possibilities. Change the breakers to ensure that you and your family are safe from any electrical fire accident.
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