Why does my afci keeps tripping

This safety measure shuts off the current to help protect your electric circuits and by extension, your home and family from overloading, heating up and possibly causing an electrical fire. Inside a circuit breaker you will find a spring hooked over a small piece of soft metal a melt-able fusible alloy.

Each breaker in the panel is then connected to an electrical wire that runs through your house to your electrical plugs and lights. The electricity that flows through your house runs through the soft metal. When the connected wiring is at risk of overheating, this small piece of metal melts, resulting in the spring extending and pulling the switch off and shutting down that particular circuit.

When the metal cools down and hardens, the breaker can then be reset. When overheated, it melts or pops and breaks the connection. Take a look at your service panel TIP: Keep a flashlight handy next to the panel, in case nearby lights are affected. Our residential team is skilled at troubleshooting and fixing electrical problems.

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A short circuit—very high current resulting from a fault on the circuit. An overheating breaker— when the breaker itself has poor contacts or connections. Thus, helping with electrical fires. Conventional circuit breaker only responds to overloads and short circuits, so they do not protect against arching. But with this added benefit we do find that some people have trouble with them tripping.

Especially when using their vacuum as well as Flat Screen TV, computers power drills, and treadmills. Why can AFCI breakers trip when you run the vacuum? Well it depends on how often the breaker trips:. These brushes can cause sparking, which is normal within the device, but abnormal in the eyes of the breaker.

Televisions and fluorescent lights can also cause tripping. Click here for more about incompatibility between devices and AFCIs. If you have a device that regularly trips your breaker, first try using it on a different circuit.

If the other breaker trips, you know the device is incompatible.