Hey, if any of you are able to pull away from your fight and help a fellow tradesman, my 9 yr old heil heat pump is tripping my indoor breaker about every 7 hours or so. I changed the breaker and it tripped that one every 30 minutes. The heat pump.is the only item on the circuit. I replaced the 50/5 capacitor in.april. i.also.replaced the contavt switch at the same.time.as it was low in.voltage. my hvac guy came.out when the.pronlem.first started 3 days ago and he said my breaker was tripped. I asked him.since he was there could he check.the unit and.make.sure the unit was ok. He said it was. So why is the unit tripping my indoor breaker still? Maybe a dying compressor that is using more amps.ro.run? Thanks for your help in advance.

I don't know how strong the correlation is to the stove burner, I'll be going over tomorrow to help my friend and I'll find out. It just puzzles me that all the lights are on one afci breaker, yet only these lights cause the breaker to trip. Also puzzling is how only one burner on the stove has an effect apparently. The set of lights in question are over the stove in the kitchen, I believe it's just a coincidence that she uses those lights when cooking. I just thought I'd post and get a potential heads up before my friend and I looked around, this way if we have to call a pro we'll have some idea. I just don't see how the stove could be related.

The first thing I need to know if this is an electric or gas dryer. An electric dryer will have a big plug on it. A gas dryer will have a simple 110 plug on it. I'm assuming an electric dryer. I'd check to make sure it has a four pin plug and that the frame is not bonded to the neutral where the cord attaches to the dryer. They come shipped so they can be installed either way (three wire hookup is legal in older houses). Next simple test is to remove the lighbulb inside your dryer and see if that stops the problem. I'd check carefully the neutrals from both the arc fault in question and the dryer circuit to make sure they are properly terminated (both the load side and the pigtail from the AFCI breaker). If there is any place where the neutrals could possibly touch after the AFCI, it will cause tripping (an AFCI also provides some ground fault protection though at a higher current rating than a GFCI would).

I'm wrapping up a big rewiring project, brand new main panel. Homeline plug-on neutral panel with 20A AFCI Breakers down the line, 12ga throughout the house. So far, five circuits are up and running including the kitchen. Four of those circuits work fine. The circuit feeding the kitchen receptacles and overhead light keeps tripping because of the AFCI. I never had a trip on a normal breaker. Test 1. I went ahead and removed one of the receptacles and the switch for the overhead kitchen light (that particular box had a GFCI that tripped frequently, so it was my first instinct). With that box completely empty, still getting an AFCI trip. Test 2. I went ahead and unpluged everything, even the dishwasher, reverse osmosis, and garbage disposal. No load on the circuit at all, not even the overhead lights. When I turned the breaker back on, it stayed on, but it was apparently on the verge. Anything added to the circuit, even an LED nightlight, would trip the AFCI, didn't matter which receptacle. Test 3. With items plugged back in, I turned off all the breakers in the house, and checked resistance from hot-to-neutral and hot-to-ground. All 5 circuits circuits were around 100 to 300 kohm. I went back to the kitchen to unplug everything, again. With no load, the resistance on that circuit went up to 0.9 Mohm. It really doesn't seem like I have any type of short or wiring leak. Any suggestions? I'm considering getting a combination AFCI / GFCI and eliminating the individual GFCI receptacles. Thanks. Edit, Test 4, I tried a different AFCI, same result. Test 5, I removed all the receptacles from the circuit, no individual GFCIs. I wired a temporary standard receptacle to test with. With zero-load, the breaker stays on. With the slightest load, the breaker trips.