Breaker Panel Basics & Troubleshooting Tips

 So now we're going to go over a circuit breaker panel, the different types of breakers, what they each mean, what they're for. And if you take a look at the overall panel, number one, it's nice and clean, and you can see that it's clearly labeled, which is a very smart thing to do. So if you look at the top breaker here, this is where all the information is for you.

This will tell you how many vol, volts go through it. The brand name here is Square D. If it has a bar that goes across two, and it's like two breakers in one, that's called a double pole breaker. Behind this breaker are two metal bars. They're called bus bars, and each bar provides 120 volts. So if you have two, this one will touch this side, but this one will touch that side and you get 240 volts.

So this is 50, and if you look over here, it says range. So if I turn this on and off the range, the power to it should go on and off. A simple way, if you want to make sure that it is actually wired and labeled correctly, is to turn it off. Look at the lights on the range. They should be off. Turn it on. The lights in the range are now on.

So now you know that that works. 30, 35, 20 all the way down. And then you have these for light switches. Now on this breaker here, you can see that it has 30 amps. It's a double pole breaker. And it's labeled WH, which means water heater. This metal bar here pops out when there's trips, so you as a technician know when you open the panel that if you see this outta place, that this breaker was tripped.

So you can just see just like that, and then when you come to a service call, you know that the breaker tripped. Then of course you investigate why. All you have to do is push it back, make sure this. It goes right over, push it down until it's right behind, and then you're all set for this. But that's what that's for.

You can even lock this out if you need to. So somebody can't put this over when you are working on it. In other words, you could put a lock here like your lockout tagout kit, and now this won't go over it. So that's what that's for. Okay, we'll put this back here. Now we have fifteens, of course. And if you look up here, this is 15, but this is a GFI and A GFI or GFCI as a ground fault circuit interrupter.

Those are designed to help protect people and mostly for saving human beings and protection. So you can test it and just push, and then the breaker trips. Now you'll notice, and this is why we get so many service calls. People will often just push this and wonder why it doesn't reset. And it's designed this way specifically so that you have to push it and then reset it.

And that's how you reset that breaker. And I think it's a good idea when you do your make readies and inspections to make sure that all the breakers are secure. Test. There we go. Now watch, push back on. Now that one controls the lights. Move up to 20. Now you have a 20 amp breaker, which is usually small appliances or in the kitchen or dining area, which is exactly what this is.

Here, push it that way, push it this way. That's what all of these are for, and I'm gonna show you a nice tip on how to troubleshoot these without taking the panel off. Now this is an infrared thermometer and if you can see the display, if not, I'll tell you what it is. But what I think you should do, and I like to do this myself, is to take the temperature of all the breakers and they should all be within one or two degrees of each other, 73, 74, 73 point, and you go up and down the breaker panel.

If one of these breakers is warm, that means something is operating like this is 75 6 degrees. This is the one that controls the lights in the dining area, and all of those are on right now, so it should be a few, one or two degrees higher, 76, 77, 74, all the way down. Now if one is really warm, then we really should take a look and find out why.

Now, let's look at the one where the ranges that is 76. Five four. Okay, so now this one is two or three degrees higher. Than all of the other ones. And it will actually go up a little bit more the longer the range is on. But I turned the range on a few minutes ago and because it's using energy, more current goes through here, and when more amperage goes through here, it gets warmer.

So this is just a really good way to see if things are being, if they're warm, they're all the same. One to two degrees is okay. 72, 74, 76, that's with all the lights. 73, 2. Let's see, 74, we'll find it and the temperature goes up. And when this is 3, 4, 5, 6 degrees, it usually means something is on two, three degrees, difference, four degrees.

Something is on. If this was hot to touch, or 10 degrees or 15 degrees warmer than everything else, I would be concerned that this breaker is no good or that it has a loose connection, and I would investigate why that's happening. And this is a quick way to test your circuit breakers. This is the function of all of them, double pole, single pole, ground fault circuit interrupter, designed to help save people and protect them.