I had an electrician estimator come out during the time when this breaker was failing. I had called for an electrician to come out but the estimator was send out by mistake. He was the one that suggested just replacing the breaker. He said the breakers breakdown and fail with age.
Tim
jubangy wrote:Not saying I disagree with you but what was taught when I was in college was that the more a breaker trips the more it loses tolerance. If it is running overloaded constantly then yes it will also lose tolerance. But I have seen some pretty old breakers that worked well. Again like I said earlier, if you are killing mains enough to knock them out of tolerance or they are feeling excessively warm I would check to make sure that your panel is load balanced. have you checked to see if your new main breaker is also running warm?ImaDufus wrote:We bought a mobile last year and the same thing was happening to us. The wife would run the washer and dryer at the same time and after a period of time the main breaker would trip. When I went to reset it, it was VERY warm to touch. I eventually replaced the main breaker and that solved the problem. These breakers become fatigued with time and use.
You may be able to alleviate you problem just by changing out the main breaker too. But don't attempt to do this yourself. You could buy the replacement breaker and then hire someone to change it out for you.
Hope the helps.
Tim
jubangy wrote: If the "main breaker" was tripping when the washer and drier was running at the same time I would definitely be getting someone out to look at that wiring, as it sounds pretty overloaded.
One thing you may want to also do is feel your breakers with the back of your hand with the normal stuff on as usual and see if there are any breakers getting excessively warm/hot, that is usually a tell tale sign of overloaded circuits. And under the same conditions I would also check the main for excessive heat as well.