Stove - Tripped breaker

11 years ago

Been living in my 12 year old house for a year, never had a problem with breakers tripping. Last night my power to the whole house went out. (I was using stove) I thought it was storm related at first. After realizing that neighbours were not affected I went to my elec panel. I put power back on and everything seemed normal. Went to use my stove and still dead. It seems that the breaker for stove was tripped still. Flipped that back on and everything was good. Stove was now not being used. Woke up in morning and stove was off again. Breaker tripped in middle of night. Would my first option be to replace breaker?

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Comments (6)

kaseki
11 years ago
Changing the breaker is probably the first option without test equipment if the tens of dollars involved is an acceptable risk and you know what you are doing in the breaker box. Breakers do fail, sometimes, so it is not a poor bet. Also, the transient that shut down the whole house breaker might be expected to have caused some harm to the stove breaker. This could explain the overnight trip.

However, one might ask what could have caused this transient, as the house breaker should not have tripped just because the stove breaker decided to fail from old age? The logic here suggests that there may be an intermittent overload in the stove or the wiring thereto. Intermittents are the worst things to diagnose without data recording equipment, so I would replace the breaker first.

kas
weedmeister
11 years ago
I'd be worrying more about a short in the stove than a faulty breaker.
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We plan on being here a long time, so it might come up in a future home inspection when we sell but we have no plans to do that. We can just plan on "bringing it up to code" or maybe by then it will be more functional code, but I don't feel too wild reverting those breakers back to what worked fine for the last 20 years. I appreciate our electricians following code, I do, but even they said the code is frustrating because it is causing more unhappy customers. For the fridge, it is recommended that the fridge NOT be on a GFCI but because it was within 6' of the sink it had to be, so it's a catch 22. (and I have since been mentally measuring my friends sink-fridge distance, and very few are greater than 6' apart, especially in Maine where our housing stock is older - I'm sure in a subdivision of new builds it's easy to accommodate, but my established neighborhood of small 50s homes, not so much.) The microwave is on a dedicated circuit and opposite the sink but just under 6' so it's on a dual breaker (until this weekend) and for now we have it plugged in into the living room and sitting on the floor to be able to use it. If the Vitamix throws breakers we will swap duals out to a GFCI one (since those would be counter outlets, that makes sense!)
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jakvis
11 years ago
I agree with weedmeister... The stove needs to be checked for a short before considering replacing a breaker.

The breaker blowing is usually a symptom of a problem but rarely the problem itself.
dadoes
11 years ago
A breaker doesn't normally trip unless there's current passing through it, which shouldn't be any if the range is Off ... unless maybe a minimal current if it has electronic controls. A weak breaker will trip at a less-than-full load, but still requires some amount of current passing through, more than would be pulled by stand-by electronics. This is why you're being advised to have the range checked for a short or other such problem ... something is pulling enough current to trip the breaker, whether it's a weak breaker or not.
llaatt22
11 years ago
The fact that both breakers tripped the first time but not the second time is somewhat reassuring that things are now working in a more normal manner.
You might be wise to shut off the stove breaker when you are not using same.

What is the stove brand and model?
Did you notice any unusual smells or noises when the power failed?
Were you doing any diy work in the house earlier in the day?
chas045
11 years ago
It is hard to imagine a reason for both breakers tripping other than that at least the stove breaker is defective and needs replacement immediately. A stove overload should only trip the stove breaker and when it trips, that should protect the mains from damage. I see no reason for waiting to replace the stove breaker. Any future overload should only trip the new breaker and presumably not damage that breaker (for current or future use) or the mains either.

Stove - Tripped breaker

Comments (6)

kaseki

weedmeister

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