One of our circuit breakers keeps tripping and I'm not sure why. It is for two rooms that normally do not have a lot of usage and there has not been any increased use either. It started happening last night during the storms and the door came open getting the breakers wet. Any ideas??
What Dominator said. Also, if you stand by the breaker box can you here any buzzing? If so, that is something you want to get fixed ASAP.
Does it trip immediately after being flipped on? If so 50/50 chance that there is a short or the breaker is bad. If it takes a while to trip it's more likely the breaker. Is it hotter to the touch than the other breakers around it? A weak breaker will typically heat up for a period of time, then trip. Considering it got wet, I'd pull it out and look for corrosion on the contacts. Another idea that is safe and free: Unplug everything on that breaker (lamps, tv, etc.), wait for tripping. If none, plug things back in one by one until you find an offender. Simply swapping a breaker is a pretty cheap trail and error situation if you are comfortable with that stuff.
Im from australia so not sure about American standards. But if there is an RCD involved there could be an issue with one of the sockets which is causing leakage current to trip the breaker. In any case highly recommended to get electrician to check it out rather than risk a DIY investigation. Normally things like kettles/toasters can have faulty wiring and cause the RCD (residual current device) to trip but yeah - moisture in a socket could probably do it also or just some form of faulty wiring along the way. Breaker failure is also a possibility as mentioned above.
I think it was just because it was wet. Each time took longer and longer to trip, and finally we just went out with a hair dryer to speed up the process. It hasn't tripped since.
I was going to say that hair dryers make them trip a lot of the times and then you said you used a hair dryer on the breaker itself and my mind was kinda blown for a second there. Could it be the hair dryer?
If you have trouble right after a storm, I was going to say this is usually water getting into a circuit somewhere, and you said the box itself got wet (!) So yeah, you are probably just fine now.
