What Causes a Circuit Breaker to Go Bad?

Dave

January 7, 20100 found this helpful

Age can cause parts to weaken, humidity or chemicals in the air can cause corrosion of internal parts and excessive tripping can cause them to wear out. I know Square D recommends turning the breaker off and back on once a year to exercise the mechanism to keep it working properly. There is also the quality issue, cheap parts wear out more quickly.

Grandma J
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January 10, 20100 found this helpful

Yes they can go bad. Remember, you must fix the cause not the result. If your main is tripping then you have a dead short somewhere between the panel.