Electrical Panel

Hi folks,

A quick question? My electrical panel started making a buzzing noise. I tried to identify if it was a breaker by turning them off in sequence but to no avail. So I turned off the main breaker then turned it back on and the buzzing stopped. It seemed to start after I plugged the block heater in my truck in, which may have had some condensation in the cord receptical. Does anybody have any idea what the cause might be? Any help or ideas would be appreciated. BTW I uplugged the block heater and the buzzing hasn't come back.

Thanks in advance
F.O.G.

 

usually the buzzing is a sign of high amp draw on a bad breaker
How familliar areyou with working in the panel?

 

Hi HVACELECT,

I'm somewhat familiar with the panel. Enough to know it's an older QO-30m panel rated at 125 amp with 120 and 240 volt capability and D type breakers. Other than that I'm know genius I know you turn of the main power to work on it and remove the breaker and reinstall the new one by hooking up the neutral the ground and the hot then close up the box and turn back on the main power. Other than that I don't know much about them. By the way how do you tell if a circut breaker is not functioning properly? Anyway any assistance or ideas would be greatly appreciated since I don't want to pay an electrician to check everything if I can either do it myself or point him directly to the problem.

Thanks again

F.O.G.

 

It may just be a loose breaker as well. You might try applying some pressure to the buzzing breaker and see if that helps. Of course if you haven't done anything inside of the panel to knock it loose, the mounting clips may be losing tension, in which case the breaker would probably need to be replaced anyway.

 

Thanks,

I'll give it a try but I still don't know how to tell if the breakers are faulty any ideas? The house is 28 years old and I'm pretty sure the breakers are as old. So could it be the main breaker thats making the noise since it went quiet after I shut it off and then turned it on again. By the way when it first started buzzing I shut off what I thought was the offending circut, it quieted it down but didn't get rid of the buzzing completely till I shut off the main and turned it on again.

Cheers

F.O.G.

 

I have a brand new AFCI that has buzed from the start, even when there are no loads drawing current.

Is this an artifact of the AFCI or do i need to check out my breaker?