At this point, resetting it again probably won’t take care of the problem. It’s now time to do a little detective work and figure out why it’s popping in the first place.

As you may (or may not) know, circuit breakers are designed to turn off power to a branch circuit if a dangerous condition is detected on the circuit, thereby preventing the risk of fire. Breakers can trip for any of the following conditions:

Overloaded circuit

Short circuit

Shock potential

Overloaded Circuit

An overloaded is the most common reason for circuit breakers to trip. An overload occurs when a circuit is drawing more amperage that it is designed to carry safely. In most residential settings, the most common breakers are 15 amp and 20 amp sized for lighting and receptacle power. Larger breakers may exist in the panel for specialized equipment such as well pumps, central air conditioning, or electric stoves.

As an example, suppose you have a 15 amp circuit breaker protecting receptacles in your living room. This circuit will allow no more than 1800 watts of power to flow before tripping due to overload (for you math fans, a watt is defined as volts x amps. So, 15 amps x 120 volts = 1,800 watts).

Let’s say you are running a TV that draws 110 watts, two lamps with a 75 watt bulb in each one, and a ceiling light with a draw of 200 watts. Now you decide to plug in an electric heater that draws 1,450 watts. Once you turn it on, the circuit breaker trips. After doing the math, you find that the heater pushed the wattage of the circuit over 1,900 watts. Since this is more than the 1,800 watts the circuit breaker is rated for, it tripped.

Now if someone had installed a circuit breaker larger than what the wire is rated for, you would run the risk of a fire. The larger circuit breaker wouldn’t trip (for instance, a 20 amp breaker can carry 2,400 watts at 120 volts), but the 15 amp-rated wire used to supply that room will overheat and possibly melt and start a fire. So, how is an overload condition corrected? There are a couple of possibilities:

The easiest thing is to turn off anything you’re not using in the room in question and see if that alleviates the overloading condition

Another solution is to unplug a couple of appliances from the circuit in question and plugging them into different circuits in different rooms (rooms that still were working when the breaker tripped).

One last reason you may see a circuit breaker trip is due to overheating. When a circuit breaker is operating continuously near its maximum temperature rating, the internal mechanisms may more readily trip due to the high ambient temperature within the molded case of the circuit breaker. Circuit breakers may overheat for a couple of reasons:

1. if there is a continuous load on the circuit that is at or near the trip rating for the breaker;

2. if the connections are loose on the breaker.

Nuisance tripping due to loads running at or near the maximum rating of the circuit can be cured following the suggestions listed for overload tripping above.

Loose connections are easier to fix, if you catch them in time. When a terminal screw is not tightly secured against a wire, what will happen is that over time, this wire will become loose in the terminal. When the wire heats up (such as when it is under load) it expands and pushes against the screw. Later when the load is shut off and the wire contracts, the gap between the wire and screw becomes a tiny bit bigger. Eventually, enough instances of this cycle occurring will cause a big enough gap between the wire and screw terminal to allow a spark to occur when the load is turned on. The sparking will eventually become a constant buzzing or crackling within the panel. This action creates heat within the breaker and may cause it to trip. Tightening the screw connections prevents this problem from getting worse.

If the problem goes unchecked, eventually, that constant crackling works kind of like a low-energy arc welder. It will begin to degrade components of the circuit breaker (and possibly even the bus bar of the panel) to the point where it can no longer be fixed by tightening; the breaker (and possibly the service panel) would have to be replaced in its entirety.