On 10/07/2017 22:10, Bob F wrote:
On 7/9/2017 10:20 PM, Lenny Jacobs wrote:
On 10/07/2017 09:31, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 7/9/2017 9:28 PM, Lenny Jacobs wrote:
When a breaker is tripped, it's always the main breaker, not the
individual breaker. Shouldn't the individual breaker be tripped first?

This is troublesome because I then have to turn off all individual
breakers with the main breaker on and flip each breaker to see which
one causes the trouble.


What is the rating of the main breaker? What is the load? if the main
is 100 and you have a bunch of 20A breakers pulling 15A the group would
trip the main.

You should do some analysis to see if you are overloading the panel. If
you added Central AC, larger water heater,dryer, electric range, they
may not be a problem individually but together, too much for the main.

Thanks for the reply. That's no the problem. I can always trace the
problem to one single breaker and flip it. That solves the problem for
quite a while. When it is dry season, there is no breaker problem.
When the four month raining season comes, some breakers would trip. I
don't know if it is due to moisture or underground short circuit. I
flip those offending breakers and everything is good, except I don't
have garden lights and others which I have yet to figure out what they
are. There are so many breakers in the box. I don't know which one is
for what.

If moisture is causing such problems, other than as a result of a sump
pump overloading things, then you have real problems that should be
tracked down and fixed ASAP. You don't want your house burning down. If
you can't figure it out quickly, spend the $ on a good electrician.

I did ask an electrician about the breaker tripping problem. He said
casually that's due to moisture. No need to fix. Just live with it.
Since those breakers don't seem to control anything important (the only
thing I notice is garden lights not working), I just live with the problem.