Home electric problem / question help

[teg]

LD1, thanks... :thumbsup:

So I should be up at the farm around 7 pm after eating and setting things up... I'll post plenty of photos that night. We have several guest visiting for the first time so hopefully my wife can entertain them.

 

[Ford850]

I am guessing that there are several "ganged" light switch boxes, probably 3 or 4 switches in each one. The supply to the various lights are from different breakers, but inside the ganged switch boxes ALL the whites (neutrals) are wire nutted together.

That would do it, and only trip the breakers when certain lights were flipped on.

 

[CobyRupert]

I am guessing that there are several "ganged" light switch boxes, probably 3 or 4 switches in each one. The supply to the various lights are from different breakers, but inside the ganged switch boxes ALL the whites (neutrals) are wire nutted together.

:thumbsup:

 

[B7510HSD]

I had an issue in my old Manufactured home (actually new at the time) where we had one breaker that would trip constantly after about a year of this we had something plugged into an outlet and smelled electrical burning ended up being wires not being tight on the outlet and arching cut wires back and replaced outlet and never had a problem again...May want to check a few see if this may be your problem cheap fix!!

 

[Alesandro]

We have a new house at the farm, with new electrical service, 200 amp.

How new is this house and who did the electrical work? I ask because if this is new as in you barely moved in and this is happening, then if you paid an electrician to do the work they should do it as warranty. If you had the house designed by an Electrical contractor and you (you= you or any friend who did it on the side) wired it or you yourself wired it then there should still be some type of plans or wiring diagram the work was performed to that would have been submitted to the city or Authority Having Jurisdiction. With these plans you should be able to possibly see any unbalanced loads or other issues.

This being a new house, should be an easy one to track down.

 

[GLyford]

If the GFCI outlets are on a GFCI breaker, are they fighting each other? I thought they were subject to nuisance trips when "stacked".

Go to each of the outlets that "dies" and use one of these:

Klein Tools Digital Circuit Breaker Finder-ET3 - The Home Depot
or
Sperry Lan WireTracker Tone and Probe Wire Tracer-ET6422 - The Home Depot

or equivalent to see which breakers they are on?

The tone generator looks like it might be more useful for actually following wiring between outlet boxes, switch boxes, etc.

 

[teg]

How new is this house and who did the electrical work? ....

An old man most likely 80 y.o. give or take, it was not the builders' main guy... he should have been fired, we had LOTS of issues with the guy but you normally don't get the best people up there. I could go on but I would never have that first electrician back... ever!

 

[Budweiser John]

I've followed this thread from day one and from my thirty year plus experience in the building/remodeling industry, my suspetion relates to improper "wire nut" splices in the building wiring network.
Yes, wire nuts are used by the thousands and are recognized under the NEC. Looking back, electrical connections were soldered. Then came 'stake-ons', (copper splice barrels). And finally the ubicuas 'wire nut'. Problem is, simply stuffing two or more wires into a wire nut with a few wrist turns does not make a secure, permanent electrical connection.
I would investigate each outlet box and determine that the field splices and taps are all secure in addition to checking the tightness of all the screw connections on the devices.
A post or so ago, mention was made of a more senior guy doing the work and I'm not knocking senior workers as, I've reached that status myself but it leads pause to double check.
B. John

 

[Oldoak]

Most senior tradesmen that I know were craftsman and were meticulous when it came to detail. :thumbsup:

Some junior tradesmen had an attitude like "get this job done and move on to the next one just as quick as I can". :thumbdown:

 

[teg]

Post #14 goes into some details about the older Plumber/electrician... (and/or how bad our "code enforcer" is)... bottom line, he passed code but stuff was not connected (finished) I found wires not connected and plumbing not tied in.

...and I don't want the lowest bidder back to correct or fix the problems, I want it done correctly!