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Wade Garrett

On 4/20/20 11:49 PM, wrote:

I went over to help a buddy with a 15 amp circuit he had trip over the weekend. Its on a 15 amp single pole tandem breaker. The circuits has loads such as his TV, computer, and about 4-6 can lights(so basically around 5 receps and 6 can lights controlled by 2 dimmer switches) . The breaker was in the tripped position when I got there, so I cycled it off then I tried to switch it back on and working a second it hummed then tripped. Tried it a few more times with the same results. I removed the circuit and applied it to the second 15amp breaker of the tandem and the same thing happened, a hum noise then a trip all within 2 seconds max. I put another working 15 amp circuit on it to make sure the breaker wasnt bad and sure enough it energized and held and was reading 120v to ground on the load side. I also moved the circuit to another single pole 15 amp breaker that wasnt a tandem to make sure it wasnt just the whole breaker itself and sure enough it tripped that breaker as well so its either a short or an overlord. He said he hasnt added anything at all to the circuit to make it overload. I asked if hes driven any screws or nails into the walls as well Incase he may have hit the Romex and that was ruled out. So I unplugged all of the loads, even removed a few of the receptacles and just wired the wires together to see if I could get the circuit breaker to hold, but no luck. I checked for continuity at the recaps and I was reading it but that could be because its getting the continuity from the can lights. So I pretty much ruled out an overload of the circuit, and now onto finding a short. We only had 30 minutes to mess around with it today but I will be going back tom. My plan is to find the home run of the circuit coming into the nearest receptacle to the panel id imagine and identify it and take any load off it and see if the breaker energizes and holds and reads 120v to ground. If I get that far then I will start attaching load by load down the stream until I find out which load is tripping the circuit. Any advice would help and be greatly appreciated. Should I remove the bulbs in the can lights to remove more power draw or that being the possibility of the short?

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