As residential and commercial electricians in Massachusetts, we spend a lot of time performing maintenance and inspections. Our team of emergency electricians is often helping home and business owners deal with power outages and broken fuse boxes. We often get questions asking us about how to handle a broken or damaged circuit breakers. First, we highly recommend that you call a licensed electrician if you are not familiar with electrical work. A licensed electrician can prevent damage to both you and your property. Our team is always available 24/7 to assist you if you are in Massachusetts. But in some cases, it is perfectly safe and advisable for a homeowner to adjust their own circuit breaker.

How To Reset A Tripped Breaker

Your breaker is designed to interrupt power to a circuit when the electrical flow exceeds what is considered safe. This is known as “tripping”. A tripped breaker is easy to reset. First, turn off light switches and electrical appliances to avoid re-tripping the breaker. Next, locate your circuit breaker.

Important: Whenever working with an electrical system, make sure that both your hands and the floor are dry.

Once you have located your circuit breaker in your basement, garage, or other areas of your property open the outside panel. There should be a diagram on the inside of the door that explains what each switch goes to. You will want to take the switch that is no longer on and set it fully to OFF and then switch it to ON. Check and make sure your power has returned.

How To Troubleshoot Your Circuit Breaker

When a tripped breaker continually trips or won’t reset, this is a sign of a larger problem. It could be faulty wiring, issues with an outlet, a plug, or an appliance in that room. First, unplug and turn off everything that is on that circuit. While you are doing this look for any burn marks near outlets or plugs that may indicate an issue. Reset the breaker. If it stays on, start plugging in appliances one at a time and see which one causes the breaker to trip. Throw away or repair any appliances that trip the breaker. If none of them cause the breaker to trip, start turning on lights. If a specific light trips the breaker; turn off and unplug everything, reset the breaker, and try that light by itself. If the lightswitch trips the breaker even by itself, you will need to call an electrician to repair the switch. If you cannot pinpoint what is causing the breaker to trip the issue may be the circuit breaker itself.

Contact Cardoso Electrical Services

If you are worried that there is an issue with your circuit breaker, you have noticed burn marks around your appliances, outlets, or light switches, or you are consistently losing power, please call Cardoso Electrical Services to check out your breaker.