Hoping to get a little feedback on what I experienced on Saturday.
Noticed the A/C wasn't cooling the house. Checked outside, the fan on the outside compressor unit wasn't spinning. The 30 amp breaker for the outside unit was tripped. I reset it and the fan came on a moment later. Didn't think much of it. We had a 30 minutes power outage the day before due to a bad storm, figured it must have tripped the breaker when the power went. A short while later, the house wasn't getting cooler. Checked the outside unit again. Again, fan not running. Again, breaker tripped. Reset it two more times, only to have it trip within 10 minutes each time.
It occured to me the breaker might be bad. The last time I reset it, I noticed an arcing flash. Looked at the panel. Had one other, identical 30A breaker in the panel for the dryer. Turned off the power, removed the 30A for the A/C, swapped the dryer breaker. Everything turned on normally. And stayed on. So, bad breaker, apparently.
After the power was back on, I had a chance to look at the bad breaker. Some fairly heavy carbon on the terminals. The A/C wire is stranded aluminum, and it had some anti-oxidizing goop on it, as it should. Hard to tell how well coated it was, but I though (by flashlight), the aluminum wire had some carbonizing on it as well. Set out to Home Depot to get a replacement breaker (QO type...$35...argh!) and some of anti-oxidant goop.
With the power off again, I undid the A/C breaker, carefully cleaned the end of the aluminum wire with sandpaper, coated the wire ends and inside the breaker terminals with the anti-ox goop, reattached the wires, removed any excess goop, and reinstalled the breaker. Installed the replacement breaker for the dryer circuit. Everything powered back up as expected and all has run well since.
Wondering: Was it a poor install job on that aluminum wiring that led to the carbonizing and tripping? Was the breaker just deteroirating? Any insight appreciated. In case it matters: The house is about 4 years old, and this is all original equipment from the build.
Noticed the A/C wasn't cooling the house. Checked outside, the fan on the outside compressor unit wasn't spinning. The 30 amp breaker for the outside unit was tripped. I reset it and the fan came on a moment later. Didn't think much of it. We had a 30 minutes power outage the day before due to a bad storm, figured it must have tripped the breaker when the power went. A short while later, the house wasn't getting cooler. Checked the outside unit again. Again, fan not running. Again, breaker tripped. Reset it two more times, only to have it trip within 10 minutes each time.
It occured to me the breaker might be bad. The last time I reset it, I noticed an arcing flash. Looked at the panel. Had one other, identical 30A breaker in the panel for the dryer. Turned off the power, removed the 30A for the A/C, swapped the dryer breaker. Everything turned on normally. And stayed on. So, bad breaker, apparently.
After the power was back on, I had a chance to look at the bad breaker. Some fairly heavy carbon on the terminals. The A/C wire is stranded aluminum, and it had some anti-oxidizing goop on it, as it should. Hard to tell how well coated it was, but I though (by flashlight), the aluminum wire had some carbonizing on it as well. Set out to Home Depot to get a replacement breaker (QO type...$35...argh!) and some of anti-oxidant goop.
With the power off again, I undid the A/C breaker, carefully cleaned the end of the aluminum wire with sandpaper, coated the wire ends and inside the breaker terminals with the anti-ox goop, reattached the wires, removed any excess goop, and reinstalled the breaker. Installed the replacement breaker for the dryer circuit. Everything powered back up as expected and all has run well since.
Wondering: Was it a poor install job on that aluminum wiring that led to the carbonizing and tripping? Was the breaker just deteroirating? Any insight appreciated. In case it matters: The house is about 4 years old, and this is all original equipment from the build.