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My breakers keep flipping...

ZeonZeon Registered User regular
edited November 2006 in Help / Advice Forum
I know this is a long shot since this is the sort of problem best solved in person, but i know some of you guys are real handymen, so maybe youll be able to help me out.

Problem is, one of the 2 breakers that my apartment runs on keeps flipping. Ive isolated the problem, and solved it (hopefully, turns out i cant run my heater and my microwave at the same time, so i moved my heater), but my problem now is i cant find the breaker to flip it. The first time it happened earlier this week it was early in the morning, so i just went and found my land lady and an electrician came and fixed it. Now its happened again, but its midnight, and my land lady wont be up for 9 more hours.

This wouldnt be such a huge problem, except the breaker thats flipped is the one my fridge is on, and my fridge is crap so in 9 hours all my food will have gone bad. Is there any easy way to find the breakers? I know theyre not in my apartment, and im pretty sure theyre in the laundry room. However, theres no labeled breaker panel. I do know where the main box with the 2 60amp fuses that controls my apartment is though, is there any way i can find out from that where my breaker panels are? The only one i can see that might correct is 2 linked breakers directly under it that says water heater. Im afraid to flip it though incase something goes wrong.

Heres a little diagram of what the electrical system looks like in there

[2nd floor apartment 60amp fuse box] [1st floor fuse box] [my fuse box] [main breaker]

[unlabled 2 switch linked breaker] [another unlabeled 2 switch breaker] [water heater]

All of the 2 switch breakers are linked to the panel above, 1 for each apartment, which is why i think the water heater switch might be for my apartment. None of them are obviously flipped off, but ive noticed that most of the time when breakers flip, they dont flip all the way off, you manually have to push them off then on.

Is there anything i can do to fix this myself without 1) causing a gas leak, 2) disrupting other tenants hydro, or 3) dooming myself to more spoiled food and the embarassment of telling my land lady i blew a fuse for the second time this week?

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Posts

  • ProtoProto Registered User regular
    edited November 2006
    digital camera? post an image if you can.

    Proto on
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  • BEAST!BEAST! Adventurer Adventure!!!!!Registered User regular
    edited November 2006
    you should, fairly easily, be able to tell which is tripped....

    all of them should be completely to the right except the tripped one will be slightly to the left, shouldn't be a very difficult thing to find, it's pretty obvious..just flip that one all the way to the left and then back to the right and it should work for you

    i'd get it looked into though...might either be just a very weak breaker that needs to be replaced or a bigger issue (exposed wire)

    BEAST! on
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  • ThanatosThanatos Registered User regular
    edited November 2006
    BEAST! wrote:
    you should, fairly easily, be able to tell which is tripped....

    all of them should be completely to the right except the tripped one will be slightly to the left, shouldn't be a very difficult thing to find, it's pretty obvious..just flip that one all the way to the left and then back to the right and it should work for you

    i'd get it looked into though...might either be just a very weak breaker that needs to be replaced or a bigger issue (exposed wire)
    Running a microwave and a heater on the same circuit will trip most household breakers.

    Thanatos on
  • ZeonZeon Registered User regular
    edited November 2006
    BEAST! wrote:
    you should, fairly easily, be able to tell which is tripped....

    all of them should be completely to the right except the tripped one will be slightly to the left, shouldn't be a very difficult thing to find, it's pretty obvious..just flip that one all the way to the left and then back to the right and it should work for you

    i'd get it looked into though...might either be just a very weak breaker that needs to be replaced or a bigger issue (exposed wire)

    Yeah thats what i would have thought, but none of them in that room are. I dont know if theres another box i cant find or what, but none of those breakers are obviously tripped. Im thinking maybe one of them has half tripped? The breakers at my parents house never fully snap back to the left, they always just sit on the right. Luckily theyre all labeled so if one of them flips, its easy to figure out which one. Sadly, that is not the case here.

    And yeah, i would have never run the microwave and heater on the same circuit if i had of known. The first time i didnt even notice the heater had gone off, but tonight I did because it started to get cold in here. I moved the heater to the currently working circuit, which only has my computer, tv and living room light on it, so im hoping it will be ok.

    Zeon on
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  • khainkhain Registered User regular
    edited November 2006
    Thanatos wrote:
    BEAST! wrote:
    you should, fairly easily, be able to tell which is tripped....

    all of them should be completely to the right except the tripped one will be slightly to the left, shouldn't be a very difficult thing to find, it's pretty obvious..just flip that one all the way to the left and then back to the right and it should work for you

    i'd get it looked into though...might either be just a very weak breaker that needs to be replaced or a bigger issue (exposed wire)
    Running a microwave and a heater on the same circuit will trip most household breakers.

    Also replacing breakers with higher amperage ones is a really bad idea unless your a qualified electrician as its more likely that you'll make the breaker useless and burn your house down before it trips.

    If your really desperate you could just flip the non labeled ones off and then back on, or go look for another panel somewhere. Its no uncommon to have a individual panels in the apartments themselves.

    khain on
  • BEAST!BEAST! Adventurer Adventure!!!!!Registered User regular
    edited November 2006
    Zeon wrote:
    BEAST! wrote:
    you should, fairly easily, be able to tell which is tripped....

    all of them should be completely to the right except the tripped one will be slightly to the left, shouldn't be a very difficult thing to find, it's pretty obvious..just flip that one all the way to the left and then back to the right and it should work for you

    i'd get it looked into though...might either be just a very weak breaker that needs to be replaced or a bigger issue (exposed wire)

    Yeah thats what i would have thought, but none of them in that room are. I dont know if theres another box i cant find or what, but none of those breakers are obviously tripped. Im thinking maybe one of them has half tripped? The breakers at my parents house never fully snap back to the left, they always just sit on the right. Luckily theyre all labeled so if one of them flips, its easy to figure out which one. Sadly, that is not the case here.

    And yeah, i would have never run the microwave and heater on the same circuit if i had of known. The first time i didnt even notice the heater had gone off, but tonight I did because it started to get cold in here. I moved the heater to the currently working circuit, which only has my computer, tv and living room light on it, so im hoping it will be ok.
    yeah that's what i meant, they're just BARELY moved to the left a bit...never fully snapped back, it's pretty slight but if you look at them you should be able to tell fairly easily which isn't lined up despite it being such a tiny difference

    BEAST! on
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  • ZeonZeon Registered User regular
    edited November 2006
    khain wrote:
    Thanatos wrote:
    BEAST! wrote:
    you should, fairly easily, be able to tell which is tripped....

    all of them should be completely to the right except the tripped one will be slightly to the left, shouldn't be a very difficult thing to find, it's pretty obvious..just flip that one all the way to the left and then back to the right and it should work for you

    i'd get it looked into though...might either be just a very weak breaker that needs to be replaced or a bigger issue (exposed wire)
    Running a microwave and a heater on the same circuit will trip most household breakers.

    Also replacing breakers with higher amperage ones is a really bad idea unless your a qualified electrician as its more likely that you'll make the breaker useless and burn your house down before it trips.

    If your really desperate you could just flip the non labeled ones off and then back on, or go look for another panel somewhere. Its no uncommon to have a individual panels in the apartments themselves.

    Im not desperate. I looked again, cant see anything wrong with it. Looks like im reserved to waiting for the land lady to get up and looking like an idiot. Hopefully she was there when the electrician flipped whatever breaker it was, and remembers where it was. Otherwise shes going to have to call him again, and this time i might get stuck with the bill :/

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  • ZeonZeon Registered User regular
    edited November 2006
    SUCCESS! I went back in one last ditch effort, followed the line out of the fuse box, moved some boxes that were against the wall, and found the breaker box... whoever put it about an inch from the ground is an idiot (What if the basement ever flooded....), but i found it. Thanks everyone. This thread can be locked.

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