Arc Fault Circuit Breaker Tripping

You may even recognize these arc fault circuit interrupter breakers with their visible test button in your circuit breaker panel.

Arc fault circuit breaker tripping.

It can be identified by the special colored test button near its handle. An arc fault circuit interrupter afci is a circuit breaker located in your electrical panel that serves the functions of a normal breaker but also senses hazardous arcing on its circuit and will trip off for this. Afci circuit breaker troubleshooting. With afci circuit breakers this improper wiring will cause the breaker to trip.

Arc fault circuit interrupters are prone to nuisance tripping which is probably what you re experiencing. After having been slowly phased in over the past 3 nec code cycles these new arc fault breakers are now required on almost every 120v circuit in the finished space of the house. Afci breakers tripping for no obvious reason is known as nuisance tripping. If using this same device on a different afci breaker does not produce the same nuisance tripping try having an electrician replace the afci breaker that was experiencing the nuisance tripping.

Afcis are designed to sense an arc which is an electrical leak caused when a hot wire touches a neutral or ground but doesn t trigger the circuit breaker.