How do I know if my circuit breakers are faulty?

How do I know if my circuit breakers are faulty?

A circuit breaker’s function is to immediately cease a power source to your home or to an individual circuit which gets triggered by extensive voltage, amperage, or watts.

Circuit breakers help to prevent overloaded circuits, damaged appliances, and electrical fires in your home, but what happens when they fail to work?

Hopefully, you won’t ever have to find out!

Circuit breakers are an important part of your switchboard – so it’s critical to know the signs that yours are presenting faults or simply not protecting you the way they should be.

This week, we help you understand the signs to look for when it comes to faulty circuits, and why you must always rely on your local electrician for immediate support, advice, and repairs.

What are the signs of a bad circuit breaker?

Faulty or old circuit breakers that fail to work can result in electrical faults causing severe damage to your home or danger to those within it.

There are a few tell-tale signs that may indicate either a faulty circuit breaker, a damaged switchboard – or both.

Your switchboard hasn’t been updated

New circuit breakers are constantly being marketed so that they can act more quickly, more efficiently, and more accurately.

Fuse boxes were used instead of switchboards 20 years ago, and unfortunately some households still have them today.

If your switchboard or circuit breakers are more than 10 years old, or your home still has an outdated fuse box, contact your local electrician today.

Not sure what system your home uses? It’s better to be safe than sorry: call Plateau’s electricians who can offer immediate support and advice over the phone (where possible), or can come out to your property and assess your unique scenario.

As part of our electrical safety inspections, we can check your wiring, switchboard, and circuit breakers.

You should also check how old your electrical wiring is!

Households use greater levels of electricity over time because of advances in technology and our growing reliance on digital devices.

Therefore, if your circuits and outlets are not updated, they may eventually not be able to handle the amount of energy being used today.

We even use more electricity than we did ten years ago, so that’s why regularly having an electrician check your electrical system is more important than you think.

We’ll spot any faulty, deteriorating, or otherwise damaged wiring and replace it to ensure your system is safe and efficient. The goal is a strong and robust system that can handle our modern, digital-hungry lifestyles.

You’ve experienced an electrical fire

Electrical fires occur from outdated wiring or from electrical faults, but they can also happen when a circuit breaker has failed to recognise a surge in power that has the potential to start a fire.

When this happens, overheating from an electrical fault or from excessive voltage can generate smoke and smouldering flames inside your wall cavities.

Starting undetected, these hidden fires can cause substantial damage to your home and put you and your family at risk.

You often hear buzzing noises

Don’t dismiss a buzzing noise as simply an unavoidable annoyance. This is your warning sign that something’s not quite right!

The buzzing may come from either your:

  • Walls
  • Outlets
  • Appliances
  • Cables
  • The switchboard itself

If you experience any humming or buzzing, we urge you to call our emergency electrician in the Northern Beaches immediately.

There’s a burning smell

A lot of the time, the buzzing noises will be infrequent or will be too quiet for you to hear.

Unfortunately, this means you’ll eventually smell something before you hear something.

Burning smells occur from the physical burning and charring of the wiring of your circuits when a circuit breaker has failed to cut power.

So if there is a burning smell coming from your appliances or power sockets, stop using them immediately and contact your local electrician near you.

You don’t experience power outages or blackouts in emergencies

You might think it defies logic, but in many cases such as severe weather or damaged power lines (which a Level 2 electrician in the North Shore can assist with!) black outs and power outages are actually a positive response to these events.

Outages and blackouts occur from circuit breakers switching off your power when you’re in a potent environment.

Emergency Electrician Northern Beaches

What happens if a circuit breaker is faulty?

If your circuit breakers fail to work, it can lead to serious electrical damage via overloaded currents or electrical faults in your home that haven‘t been sensed by the breakers.

This can prevent your electricity from turning on all together or can further damage your home.

In a worst case scenario, faulty circuit breakers can cause an electrical fire in your home.

Should I call an electrician to change a breaker?

Yes! Call Plateau Electrical now

Electricity is serious business, and no matter how small, simple, or trivial you think the matter is, you must always leave it to the professionals.

Plateau’s electricians in the North Shore, Sydney can replace your circuit breakers to ensure a safe and protected home.

We can also undertake switchboard upgrades and electrical fault finding to further make you and your family feel safe from the hazards associated with a problematic electrical system.

In addition to our emergency call-our service, we also offer a range of domestic electrical services to help create a better, more efficient, and more comfortable home, including:

Contact Plateau now for any form of electrical maintenance in Sydney on (02) 9982 8668 or fill out this form and our friendly team will get back to you shortly!