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Fri, 09/29/2006 - 5:46pm

Welcome to the Circuits Forum

Working with electricity seems to illicit pangs of fear in just about everybody. But as in a lot of things, knowledge conquers fear. If you're circuit-savvy, please help out your fellow Janes by posting answers to memeber's questions, leaving tips, safety ideas, or anything you've learned that could be helpful. Are you stuck or scared? Ask this discussion group for help. Hint: if you're terrified, don't take any chances until you've learned all about the system you're messing around with.

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throwing a breaker with christmas lights outside

rfalletta writes:

Sun, 11/26/2006 - 7:10pm

Help!!! I can't seem to lkeep my lights on with out the breaker shutting off. My house is less than 10 years old and I don't know why this is happening. I have even used surge protectors.

Surge protectors only

sworthin writes:

Fri, 12/01/2006 - 11:51am

Surge protectors only protects the actual outlet, it doesn't keep you from overloading the entire circuit. Usually the problem is too many outlets or lights on a circuit. I suggest to people to identify every thing that is on the circuit that keeps tripping. Things like space heaters and dehumidifiers draw alot of amps and can cause over load conditions. If there is alot plugged in, can you move some of those things to other outlets? can you use more flourescent light bulbs in your fixtures? Maybe you have an area (home entertainment center comes to mind) where you just need to run a seperate circuit, so you don't overload the line. Also once you breaker starts tripping alot it cause fatigue and might be due to be changed.

You mentioned outside

jeffe_verde writes:

Tue, 12/05/2006 - 8:57pm

You mentioned outside christmas lights. You may have damaged a cord if you nailed/stapled the lights in place. This could be a hard short, where the breaker trips as soon as the lights are plugged in. Or it could be an intermittent, where the short only occurs when water gets into the cut or the wind, a tree branch, etc, pulls on the cord, putting pressure on the offending staple and causing it to short the two conductors.

If you've eliminated the possibility of an overloaded circuit (breaker trips when the lights are on and you then turn on a high-load appliance like a hair dryer or space heater), then you'll have to closely examine each cord, looking for damaged insulation. If the breaker trips immediately upon plugging in the lights, you can identify the damaged string by unplugging them one at a time (starting at the far end :-). If the problem is intermittent and you can't find an obviously damaged cord, your safest course is to toss them all, rather than risking the short starting a fire or zapping someone.