"E. Robinson" wrote in message
...
How do I debug when a circuit breaker keeps tripping?

1. It has never tripped before (years).
2. Yesterday, it was tripped.
3. I flip it back on, and it trips immediately.
4. It controls a bunch of outlets and lights and that's about it.

I turn off the lights it controls.
I unplug all the outlets.

It still trips.

How do you debug these things?


Take the wire off the breaker.
See if it will reset. If not, get a new breaker. If it resets, take a
meter and see how many ohms it shows to the neutral wire for that breaker.
Then see how many ohms to ground. If any ohms to ground you have a major
problem to look at, should not be any, or way up in the mega ohms atleast.
If any below several thousand (really should be up in the megaohms same as
to ground) on the neutral to the wire you took off the breaker then
something is still connected or there is a short in the wiring.

If very high ohms to neutral and ground, then swap that wire with another
breaker wire of the same rating and see if the other breaker trips. If not,
replace the breaker that is tripping.

This is assuming you do not have a ground fault breaker. If so it could be
water on an outside outlet that may not show up on the ohm meter.

If you had a meter that has a clamp on ampmeter, you could look at it and
see if it goes way up when you turn the breaker on, but many do not have a
meter like that.

If you don't have a multimeter, get one as they are less than $ 20 for one
that is good enough to use around the house.