Circuit Breaker Troubleshooting For Beginners
Nov 3rd 2021
Everything You Need to Know
If you’re having trouble with your circuit breaker and have no idea what to do, you’ve come to the right place. We’ve put together this circuit breaker troubleshooting guide for complete beginners. It will help you fix your flickering lights, overloaded circuits, and small malfunctions. So, here’s what you need to do.
Reset Your Circuit Breaker
If you are having basic problems with your electricity, the first step is to try and reset your circuit breaker. If there’s no sparking or electrical humming coming from your circuit, this is the safest and easiest thing you can try. All you have to do is turn the switch off and then back on to reset it. The switch usually gets turned off due to a short or an overloaded circuit.
Check Your Appliance Cords
Oftentimes the problem that seems to be with your circuit breaker is actually an appliance problem in disguise. So, the next step is to check your appliance cords for issues. See if there are any damaged or sparking cords. A good way to tell a damaged wire from the other is to see if the insulation is burnt off or not.
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Check the Load
Next on the list of things to check is the load. Most of the time people face trouble with their appliances, it’s usually because they’ve overloaded the circuit. If you’ve got too many devices plugged into one circuit, chances are that it’s probably overloaded. Power-demanding appliances like irons and hair dryers are major culprits in these scenarios. The solution is to lessen the load by moving one of the devices to another circuit.
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Check for Loose Wires
One common symptom of loose wires is flickering lights. Even if the flickering isn’t constant, just a little bit of it indicates loose wires as well. The easiest way to go about solving this is to unscrew your light switch panel and see where the fault lies. Make sure to cut off power to the light switches before you go around poking them. When you’ve spotted the faulty wire, screw it tightly.
Loose wires, overloaded circuits, damaged appliance cords, unset breakers - none of it requires extensive knowledge of power systems to fix. All you need are some basic tools and you can figure it out on your own. Moreover, if you’re looking for top-notch circuit breakers or other electrical components, check out Breaker Outlet. We’ve got everything you need and more.