Jim Witte wrote:
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An electrician told us that the problem was corrosion in the breaker or

in the wireing in the entire electrical box, which showed up first on the
grounding strip. He said that to fix it the entire box would have to be
rewired, but that there *wasn't* any risk of an electrical fire.



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I second Mike's conclusions, it's probably a corrosion/thermal condition, and
I'll add:

Check to make sure the circuit isn't wired with aluminum wire. If it is, get
some hands-on expert advice.

Your electrician may be suggesting a complete replacement just to make sure
that he doesn't get a callback in a couple of months if another circuit
starts doing the same thing.

If I were faced with that problem I'd cut the power to the breaker box and
pull the suspect breaker out. Look closely to see if there's any signs of
arcing (burning) on the blade in the box over which the breaker fits.

If there is, scrape it off and install a NEW breaker, as the female contacts
in the breaker probably are also burned and have lost their springiness.

You'd be well advised to wet the breaker box blade with a couple of drops of
a conductivity enhancing liquid. I swear by "Stabilant" which happens to be
made by a college classmate of mine from nearly 50 years ago. See:

http://www.stabilant.com/

That stuff has worked wonders for me. I used to have problems with the switch
blades in the several fused disconnect switches in my home HVAC systems. They
would corrode with time and start heating up enough to darken them and the
fuse clips and eventually melt the fuse links. Once I cleaned them and put a
little Stabilant on the switch blades and the fuse clips I haven't had a bit
of trouble.

Even if you don't find corrosion, put in a new breaker anyway, they're cheap
enough. And if you do find corrosion, take the time to pull all the other
breakers, check them and put a little Stabilant (or similar) on them.

It also wouldn't hurt to check all the screw terminals on the breakers and
the neutral and grounding bars with a screwdriver. They can have a tendency
to loosen a bit over time.

DISCLAIMER: If you're not knowledgable about how to make sure you've shut
offd ALL the power going to the breaker box, leave the job to a professional.

Good Luck and Happy Holidays,

Jeff


--
Jeff Wisnia (W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"If you can keep smiling when things go wrong, you've thought of someone to
place the blame on."