For the third time since moving into a new house in August, lights in one room spontaneously turned out. I checked the circuit breakers, but none of them had tripped, and then checked the GFI switches, but they were fine too. I then flipped all the breakers off and on again and managed to get the lights back, while knocking out the lights in another room. With some effort, I managed to get those lights on too by just jiggling the breaker in the on position for a few minutes.
My handyman said sometimes breakers can just be loose. Now this house was built by the previous owner, a general contractor who was probably good at it, but maybe not a professional electrician. Would it be worth paying a real electrician to come out and “tighten” the breakers?
an electrician would make sure that the connections in the breaker box were good and replace any defective breakers. an electrician could figure if just some work or breakers were needed.
you would have likely an hour of labor and the cost of any new breakers if needed.
When you checked the circuit breakers did you actually move them to the off position, and then back on? Not all breakers physically move enough to detect when they’ve been tripped.
Yes, I moved them all to off and then back on several times. One of those times, but not the first, I got the lights working again. One of those times also knocked out lights in another room. Flicking them on and off again didn’t fix the second room, but jiggling the one I’ve now identified as connected to that second room without switching it all the way off eventually did get the lights on in there. Everything’s working now and has been for a few days.
@Munch, no the handyman didn’t give me an estimate, or offer to fix them, or, in fact, even suggest they should be fixed. HIAHBNAE though. (He is a handyman, but not an electrician.)
Be careful.
There are breakers and breaker panels that have been recalled due to fire hazard.
One symptom of a potential fire hazard is lights going out or flickering.
Well you should consult an electrician to find out what exactly is wrong. If needed, replace the panel and breakers. It’s not an enormous job. Just get quotes from more than one electrician. If the panel is not a fire hazard, you could replace all the breakers yourself easily.
It sounds like something is loose in the breaker panel. It’s not very difficult to turn off the main switch and then check for tightness on the breakers in question, or heck all of them at this point.
Although if you’re not sure how to do that perhaps hiring a qualified person would be your best bet. I would be really nervous about loose connections in the main breaker panel. And if there aren’t any loose connections I would be really nervous about what else could be causing lights to come back on after a mere wiggle of the associated breaker.
A breaker has two ends, electrically and mechanically speaking. Usually, a lug or tab on the breaker’s base is slid into a slot in the breaker panel, then the breaker is pushed down onto the main bus, with an internal spring contact making the electrical connection as well as holding the breaker in place.
This contact can not be tightened, and in fact, if the breaker has been loose for a long enough time that the bus connection has been damaged, the only repair options are to get a new breaker and put it into a free space and cover the former location with a blank cover, or to replace the panel.
The other end of the breaker has a screw terminal for the branch circuit to connect to. This screw can be tightened, and over the years, they often do need to be snugged up.
For the OP, if a breaker is making intermittent contact, as evidenced by being able to restore power by jiggling it, the three possible faults would be: (in order of ease and cheapness of repair)
Loose terminal screw - tighten it.
Breaker is bad internally - replace it.
Panel lug is burnt - replace with new breaker at new location or replace panel.
Assuming your home and contents are properly insured, what’s it worth to you? Insurance money is just money. It can replace “things” but it cannot replace irreplaceable things. Nor people and pets.
Spend the cash. Hire a professional electrician and have them perform a thorough house-wide electrical check.
I wouldn’t hesitate to replace the breakers myself, but wouldn’t bash you as a wimp for letting a professional do it. If it is a FP or other defective box, I firmly believe DIY may turn to DIE north of the main breaker.
Hire a professional electrician NOW. Not tomorrow, not next week, NOW. DO NOT hire a handyman for this.
Loose/weird connections are what burns down houses. The fact that everything seems to be working now is not a good indication that the problem is actually fixed. Intermittent connections that seem to be working can still overheat and cause a fire very easily.
It is my professional opinion as an electrical engineer with a couple of decades of experience that you need to have this looked at by someone who really knows electrical stuff ASAP.
I have experienced this partial power loss scenario a couple of times and in my situation it was due to old failing breakers. For me, the power would go out in an isolated area and checking the breaker panel reveals all the breaker switches in the “on” position but resetting the appropriate breaker restored power. Now, I said this breaker was in the “on” position but this is only partially true because obviously it had tripped to “off” but the exterior switch did not move over to “off” as would be expected. It was however, loose requiring much less force to reset as compared to a breaker actually engaged in the “on” position. I replaced the breaker and that solved the problem.