Working of Circuit Breaker
Changing a circuit breaker Your circuit breaker panel protects your home from problems caused by external power surges, circuit overload, and short circuits. just once in a while. Many people don’t realize the circuit breaker themselves can actually fail. They are just subject to high humidity or things like voltage spikes.
You can easily change a circuit breaker. But you have to decide if this is safe for you or if you want to hire somebody else.
Things you need to change circuit Braker
You Just need a Flat Head Screwdriver along with changing a circuit breaker. And a roll of painter’s tape.
Clear Explanation For How Many Lamps We Use For 15Amper Circuit Breaker
Most people are worried when they think about changing breakers, they are worried about the AMP rating. The thing you need to be concerned about is those numbers that are on the old circuit breaker because that is the part of the number that will help you get the right one when you go to the store,
Important Tips
When you buy a new circuit breaker you will see a little bit of grease on the bottom. Now some people go and wipe that out of there, thinking that it shouldn’t be there, but in fact, that Greece is actually designed to help it go into the panel. And before I tell you how to install, I want to share one more really important tip, and that’s around how the wire attaches to the breaker. Many people put the wire underneath a screw and they’ll do completely wrong.
you need to insert the wire in between those two small plates.
dont putting the wire under the screw head. we’re going to screw it down tight.
Now look at your panel and identify the breaker you want to replace, flip it to the off position, and mark using that painter’s tape this might help you when you take the cover off the panel, it’s really easy to lose sight of which breaker you’re working on. Now, before you do anything else, switch off your main breaker.
remove the cover and just take off all the screws using your flathead screwdriver. But remember, this cover can be heavy and it won’t stay in position once the final screws are removed. So make sure you’re holding on to it as you take it off. If your main circuit breaker is off, you might not think there’s any power and the panel at all, but it doesn’t work that way when the power comes in for the street, it’s actually coming in from those top three wires.
And I have two black ones and one aluminum in the middle. Those wires are always live. That means there’s power there and you should never touch any of them. To verify main braker and other small braker, you can also verify that there’s no power by using a multimeter or voltage detection pens, they’ll light up and sound that alarm if there’s any power present. Now that you know a bit more about what you’re doing in the safety, now swap the breaker out.
Testing Procedure
So grab your flat head screwdriver and unscrew the screw that’s on the end of the breaker.
Once it’s loose, you can actually pull the wire that’s feeding the circuit breaker out.
You just want to put it a little bit to the side. You can actually just grab the edge of it and you’ll kind of force the circuit breaker outward. If you’re changing a circuit breaker on the right-hand side of your panel you can likely push it outward.
And if it was on the left-hand side, you just push it in the opposite direction. But that little key on the edge of the breaker is what actually holds it in the panel. And then it’s just friction that keeps it in place. Now, with our opening ready, just grab your new breaker and you can’t just push it straight in.
You’re actually going to insert the breaker at an angle
We can little hook, in the end, will engage. And once it locks in, you can actually push the opposite end of the breaker, and it’ll definitely feel right when it goes in. And there’s no way to put this thing upside down or backward. Now, just take your wire and inserted it into the breaker itself. Now some circuit breakers have those screws tight right from the store. So you may need to loosen it up first.
Be sure it goes between those two small plates. Another important thing is to hold on to that wire when you’re tightening it. If you don’t, it can be forced out and it can actually have a loose connection. So just keep it held in place you’re screwing it down and then you want to make sure the screw is nice and tight. You’re not trying to break the screw head off, but you want to make sure it’s really secure.
The new breaker’s in now installed we’ve just got to replace our cover back, these things can weigh a lot. So you want to make sure that you keep a good cover before you screw it down.
