Software
Houzz Logo Print
snbrowning1

Multiple breakers tripping and not resetting, lights flickering. Help!

11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago

2 days ago my wife called me in the house to tell me the lights were flickering. I went inside and watched them get real bright and dim every few minutes when suddenly we lost power to the tv. I went downstairs to the breaker box and found 5 or 6 breakers that had tripped. When I went to reset them 3 of them would not reset so I called my electrician who came by the next day to investigate. He had a couple theories but no real answers, and as there were no evident problems and it's a holiday weekend, he swapped out a less important breaker that was still working with one that had tripped and said he would be back Monday to replace the rest of the breakers that wouldn't reset. A couple hours later I came home and found that 8 or 9 breakers were tripped and 7 of them would not reset. My electrician told me there was no risk of fire which is my main concern until we figure out what the problem is and fix it, so I reset what breakers I could and went about my day. Later that evening we were watching tv and again the lights began to flicker and the tv lost power. Oddly enough the power was restored back to the tv before I decided to back downstairs to the breaker panel, so whatever breaker the tv is on didn't actually trip, it just lost power momentarily. At some point I decided to back down to the breaker panel to take another look and got a mild shock when I went to remove the panel cover. I immediately shut the main breaker off and touched the panel again and it was no longer electrified. At that point I shut all the breakers off and went to bed. This morning I went back downstairs and turned the main breaker on and one at a time turned on what breakers I could and felt the panel and never received another shock. The kicker is that both the mains coming into the house and the breakers and wiring are all new and everything in the breaker panel looks very neat and tidy with no obvious problems. It's the Fourth of July and this is all I can think about and can't get anyone over to look at it. And having a 1 year old I'm concerned about fires. Does anybody have an idea as to what this could be? Thanks

Comments (6)

  • 11 years ago

    Immediate thoughts:

    A lightning strike can cause weird things to happen, ie intermittent short circuits.

    Check your attic and other closed off areas in case there is a smoldering fire there.

    Are any of your neighbors, on the same transformer, having problems? If so, it's probably a POCO problem. You can also turn off all double-pole (220 volt) breakers in case the problem is related to your stove, A/C etc.

  • 11 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Keep breakers off as much as possible till it gets fixed, you risk surge damage to your light fixtures, appliances, TV, Computer, etc.

  • 11 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I cannot offer much technical help, but can say that we experienced something like what you describe when we lived in western MA. During the summer, lightening hit our house, breaking a few light bulbs but apparently not causing other damage -- everything seemed to be working fine, once the light bulbs were replaced. Roughly 4 or 5 months later, in mid-December, a major snowstorm hit, during which the lights, etc. in half of our house started flickering on and off. Fortunately, a wonderful electrician lived just a few houses up the road from us (rural area) and came down during the storm, assessed what was going on, and immediately did repairs (he considered it an emergency). It involved half the circuit board of our house and, according to the electrician, stemmed from the lightening hit during the summer.

  • 11 years ago
    Thanks for the tips.. I checked around for anything smoldering and don't see anything and for now it seems to have stopped... No more breakers are tripping. My electrician will be back tomorrow hopefully he can figure out what is going on. And been shutting the main off at night.
  • PRO
    11 years ago

    I don't know if this would help but square d makes some new kind of breaker that remembers the time it tripped. Maybe this would help narrow things down . Just a thought