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Multiple breakers tripping and not resetting...lights flickering..need help!

 
 
Sat 4 Jul, 2015 12:39 pm
2 days ago my wife called me in the house to tell me the lights were flickering. I went inside and watched them get real bright and dim every few minutes when suddenly we lost power to the tv. I went downstairs to the breaker box and found 5 or 6 breakers that had tripped. When I went to reset them 3 of them would not reset so I called my electrician who came by the next day to investigate. He had a couple theories but no real answers, and as there were no evident problems and it's a holiday weekend, he swapped out a less important breaker that was still working with one that had tripped and said he would be back Monday to replace the rest of the breakers that wouldn't reset. A couple hours later I came home and found that 8 or 9 breakers were tripped and 7 of them would not reset. My electrician told me there was no risk of fire which is my main concern until we figure out what the problem is and fix it, so I reset what breakers I could and went about my day. Later that evening we were watching tv and again the lights began to flicker and the tv lost power. Oddly enough the power was restored back to the tv before I decided to back downstairs to the breaker panel, so whatever breaker the tv is on didn't actually trip, it just lost power momentarily. At some point I decided to back down to the breaker panel to take another look and got a mild shock when I went to remove the panel cover. I immediately shut the main breaker off and touched the panel again and it was no longer electrified. At that point I shut all the breakers off and went to bed. This morning I went back downstairs and turned the main breaker on and one at a time turned on what breakers I could and felt the panel and never received another shock. The kicker is that both the mains coming into the house and the breakers and wiring are all new and everything in the breaker panel looks very neat and tidy with no obvious problems. It's the Fourth of July and this is all I can think about and can't get anyone over to look at it. And having a 1 year old I'm concerned about fires. Does anybody have an idea as to what this could be? Thanks
 
edgarblythe
 
  3  
Sat 4 Jul, 2015 12:54 pm
I would do without power, until a good electrician had a chance to examine it.
0 Replies
 
Ragman
 
  2  
Sat 4 Jul, 2015 03:06 pm
@Snbrowning1,
Quote:
.. until a good electrician had a chance to examine it.


That might mean a different electrician from this clown ... I mean electrician.
0 Replies
 
engineer
 
  3  
Sat 4 Jul, 2015 03:11 pm
@Snbrowning1,
Open the breakers to your 240v loads and see if the problem still happens. It could be that one of your 240V loads has a problem and when it cycles on, you have issues. That doesn't really explain why your 120V breakers trip. Are your 240V breakers tripping when you get all these issues? One other thought: Take a voltmeter and see what your voltage is at the outlets in your home. (If you don't have a voltmeter, they are fairly cheap and a good investment for your toolbox.)

If think happens a lot, a more comprehensive test would be to open all the breakers, turn on the house breaker, then turn on half of your breakers. If the problem is gone, turn off half of the remainder, etc until you find a breaker than causes the issue. Then you know it is something on that breaker. If you can't make it go away, it is something in the box or outside your home.
0 Replies
 
 

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