Circuit breakers are the switches that regulate the flow of electricity to your household.  They’ll protect your home in case of an overload or some other electrical fault, tripping and cutting off power to prevent any further damage to your home.  When there’s an electrical fault, the metal under the circuit breaker will heat up and bend, causing the spring-loaded breaker switch to open the circuit and cut off power.  Breakers are usually very durable and don’t malfunction very often, so make sure that you’ve isolated the problem to the breaker. To check that it is the breaker, reset the it correctly by pushing the handle fully to the off position and then to the on position. If that doesn’t do anything, read on for what to do when your circuit breaker will not reset.

Overloaded Circuit

Every appliance in the home in a circuit will attempt to draw a certain amount of power, but it’s possible that there are too many appliances plugged into a single circuit, effectively overloading it.  Try unplugging everything and shutting off light fixtures; then, attempt to reset the breaker.  If it works, slowly start plugging in appliances and lights one by one until the circuit overloads (it may be a faulty appliance or simply too many appliances in total).

Short Circuit

Overheated wires often times will lead to short circuits, creating the same symptoms of an overloaded circuit.  You’ll once again want to unplug lights and appliances individually and check for loose or torn wires.

Faulty Breaker

This is uncommon, but still very possible. Make sure that when you are attempting to replace the breaker you completely kill all power to the service panel, or you may risk severe injury.  Also, make sure that you replace the breaker with a breaker of the same rating, or you may risk overheating wires or causing a fire.  Disconnect the wires behind the old breaker and reattach them to the new breaker.  

If none of the above solutions helped reset your power, it’s highly recommended that you call a professional electrician.  With TalkLocal, you’ll be talking to a high quality local electrician who can help diagnose and solve your problem in just minutes.  It’s fast, easy, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use it to help you as soon as possible.

This entry was originally posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Electricians. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.