Another Question for electricians...

[old and tired]

So this makes it sound as if the problem happens when the laundry circuit has an issue, not the pump. Is that right?

Nope because we can run the washer for a while before it trips the breakers, thinking once the water pressure gets low enough and the pump starts, that's what trips it.

That's A GUESS, I guess I need to baby sit the water pressure gauge and watch it to make sure it trips when the pressure kicks on the pump!!!

As for the washer being on it's own breaker, no, it's not, there is a light and a couple outlets that nothing is plug into.

Update, playing with outdoor flood lights, that trips the same breaker (3rd one on the right) that I think is the washer... Need to confirm that!!! Hang tight...

Outdoor Flood lights are on the 3rd one down on the right... which trips the most.

Washer is on circuit breaker "Bedroom 3", 2nd breakers up from the H2O/water pump breaker.

 

[old and tired]

Bedroom #3 is what the washer is on... NOT the 3rd one down on the right. That one is outdoor light (that might does have a short) and a couple of kitchen lights...

 

[ultrarunner]

Have you mapped the circuits?

It’s often a good place to start.

I had a problem where tenant did lots of cooking for her church and was always tripping breakers.

I tried to convey you can’t plug in multiple skillets just because you have outlets.

My solution in the kitchen was to change several receptacles from duplex to single… it worked…

 

[ponytug]

Nope because we can run the washer for a while before it trips the breakers, thinking once the water pressure gets low enough and the pump starts, that's what trips it.

That's A GUESS, I guess I need to baby sit the water pressure gauge and watch it to make sure it trips when the pressure kicks on the pump!!!

As for the washer being on it's own breaker, no, it's not, there is a light and a couple outlets that nothing is plug into.

Update, playing with outdoor flood lights, that trips the same breaker (3rd one on the right) that I think is the washer... Need to confirm that!!! Hang tight...

If the pump kicking in causes the washer circuit to overload, something's is not right.

Bedroom #3 is what the washer is on... NOT the 3rd one down on the right. That one is outdoor light (that might have a short) and a couple of kitchen lights...

I am sorry, but I think that you are in electrician territory here. It sounds like you have more than one electrical gremlin, and I think a bit of circuit tracing and double checking of some fixtures is probably worthwhile.

All the best,

Peter

 

[old and tired]

Have you mapped the circuits?
...

No, but it's now on the "ToDo" list!!!

So the first thing I'll ask the electrician to do, is fix the short in the outdoor lighting. Every time I turn on the flood lights, they trip... Yes, another thing I ignored for far too long. This is the 3rd breaker down on the right.

I'm going to re-read the thread - and correct any wrong statements.

EDIT: Not too many corrections needed. I plan to drop the 2 outside flood lights and see how they are wired in. Those were done "on-site" by an electrician that was older than dirt and about as smart...

He was also the plumber that past the plumbing inspection, without hooking up the 2nd bathroom shower drain!!

 

[old and tired]

...The laundry breaker popping may be inducing enough of an arc to overwhelm those CAFCI breakers....

I believe that is the case.

I also think the outdoor flood lights (which are tied to some kitchen light) does have a short and when that trips (possibly caused by the water pump turning on), that, that breaker also trips a few others.

I need to fix the short, and test the washer to see if it's still causing any problems. The water pump may or may not be the root cause (like I originally thought)...

I plan on dropping the flood light fixtures and look for burnt wire

Seriously, I can not thank you enough Ponytug for walking and "thinking" me through this issue!!!

 

[ponytug]

@old and tired You are most welcome! To me it's the joy of TBN.

All the best,

Peter

 

[old and tired]

Little UPDATE!!!

So the electrician was a no show, texted him but I was ghosted. No reply....

I tested things, the outdoor flood lights, tripped 3 times before I gave up. Did a load of laundry, tripped 2 breakers, then it tripped 6 breakers.

Opened up the flood lights, which had way too much wire crammed in the "can". I tighten the two wire nuts and crammed the wires back up in there... Wire nuts were fine, and tight... Basically didn't do anything. No signs of electrical arcing.

But that's all it took, been testing the lights several times now, no more popping the breakers, working fine!

Then we did two loads of laundry, not one tripped breaker (never had that happen before).

Is it fixed? I don't believe so... I need to pull the flood light wires down again and look closer at them but I got 19.5 tons of gravel and I've been spreading that on the road down to the creek...

Heading back to the big city and come back in a couple weeks to play around again. I might replace all those breakers.

I will update this as needed... Especially if we pop a breaker. We did look online and these breakers are "crap" and a couple of "class action" files have been started.

 

[CATRAT66]

With the problems you describe the first thing I would do is install new batteries in your smoke detectors!!!

 

[grsthegreat]

Electrician here…. Hearing all these problems….id start with cleaning up that sloppy panel. Not even sure why there are so many ark fault breakers there. Only in the last few years has the NEC required nearly everything to be either ark fault or GFCI. All manufacturers have redesigned their panels to allow the breakers to directly connect to the neutral bus so no more white wires needed to be aded to neutral buss. This really helped clean up these messy panels.

Older houses (maybe less than 20 years old?) only needed ark fault on bedrooms. Gfci required on all kit, bath, garage and outdoors outlets.

Most houses over 20 ish years old never even had ark fault breakers. I know the code was written before a reliable device breaker was even invented. When i first started installing ark fault breakers, they continuously tripped. Heck, just touching a switch coverplate and getting a static electric shock tripped the breaker. Vacuums always tripped them.they were a major pain in the butt trouble call. The first ones couldnt handle the cold weather if installed outdoors or an uninsulated garage.


In a panel wires should not be allowed to loop all over the place. We try to make panels look something like this
( not one of mine, but all mine look similar to this but with way less zip ties)

But heck, at least it doesnt look something like this