On May 30, 9:56*am, "RBM" wrote:
wrote in message

...
On May 30, 1:01 am, Evan wrote:





On May 29, 9:25 am, "
wrote:

On May 29, 3:21 am, Evan wrote:

On May 28, 5:08 pm, Ziggs wrote:

When the hair dryer is on, our 15AMP circuit breaker has been
tripping
lately to the bathroom's outlet. Sometimes my wife sees a tiny flash
when the power to the outlet goes out. I just looked at the outlet
and it's a 20amp GFCI on the 15AMP circuit breaker. I just looked at
the three neutral wires on the other side of the pigtail and they
are
melted.

So, here are a copy of questions

1. Should I replace the outlet with a 15AMP GFIC instead of the
20AMP?
2. Can I just cut back the wires that are melted and put in a new
pigtail or should the wires coming into the outlet box be inspected
or
possible replaced?

@Ziggs:

What else besides the bathroom is connected to the 15amp
circuit in question which "nuisance trips" whenever you use a
hair dryer in the bathroom ? There has to be a lot more on
that circuit than just the bathroom if the neutral wires "melted"....

Melting is more typically caused by a poor connection
that has some resistance. That resistance produces
heat.

Clearly you have never seen a catastrophic overload condition
applied to undersized wiring...

How does that have anything to do with my suggestion that
if he has three neutal
wires with melted insulation coming off the
pigtail connection in a box, it's more likely due to a bad
connection generating heat right there than two breakers feeding
back through the same neutral? * Yes, that's possible,
but in my experience, it's far more likely that it's the
former.







The sort of thing where an improperly wired Edison multi-wire
branch circuit is being fed from the same leg of a home's
electrical service -- twice the rated current the neutral can
safely carry can be passing through it when both circuits
are being operated close to capacity...

This is why I suggested the OP make sure that *only* the
bathroom is being fed from the circuit demonstrating the
problems and that there is no connection to the neutral
wire of another circuit anywhere...

A loose connection is not always the answer, if that
were the case people wouldn't need to call out an
electrician every time they had an issue, they would
only need to check that all the connections were
properly tightened and that should solve the problem...

~~ Evan- Hide quoted text -

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Geez. *I never said a bad connection was the ONLY answer.
*I said when you find a few inches of melted insulation
at a connection point, ie wire nut, screw terminal,
etc., it's far more likely the problem is the connection
not a mis-wired Edison circuit. *You, on the other hand
never mentioned the more common, limited problem.

And the last part, about calling an electrician makes
zero sense. * People have a variety of skills. *Many
homeowners could not do the simple checking of
wire connections and correctly diagnose the problem,
so they would in fact call an electrician, regardless of
the cause.

** I rarely find burn outs from improperly connected Edison circuits. I'd
have to say that a good percentage of Edison circuits that I explore, are
incorrectly done. Typically, I just find the white wire turns brown from the
excessive heat, right at the neutral buss.
*The OP has a classic, loose connection under a wire nut, with a high
amperage draw, over time anneals the copper, degrades and overheats the
connection to the point of disintegration, and opens the circuit.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

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Thank you RBM. Now we have an electrician weighing in.
Good to see we're on the same page.