[twoplanekid]

My brother and I had a few breakers trip in our houses yesterday at about the same time in the evening. Our houses are on the same street separated by 7 other houses in the Village of Lake Deaton. What is causing this to happen?

[tomwed]

Originally Posted by twoplanekid

My brother and I had a few breakers trip in our houses yesterday at about the same time in the evening. Our houses are on the same street separated by 7 other houses in the Village of Lake Deaton. What is causing this to happen?

Call the warranty department and ask them. It will save you a lot of reading.

[KeepingItReal]

Originally Posted by villagetinker

Just got off the phone with SECO, SECO has no Smart Meters in the villages. They do have some AMR (Automatic Meter Reading), but these are still read by a meter reader, and none of their meters have transmitters. They did have a few Smart Meters 1-2 years ago, but these are in the process of being removed.
So bottom line the SECO meter on the side of your house is not causing the AFCI breakers to trip. On a side note, when they were using a few Smart Meters, they communicated on the same frequencies as cell phones, so if these were causing the problem, every time you made a cell call, you would trip your breakers.
NOTE: If SECO told someone else that they are looking into the problem, then they are looking into some other cause.
I hope this helps.

Very odd they have Smart Meters on your home but are not using them after they awarded a contract to build the Smart grid. Has anyone been able to identify where the ham operator is located or is he/she mobile?

[villagetinker]

No Smart meter on my home. I have only been in TV for 2 years, so I have no knowledge of a Smart Grid project, however the person I was talking to indicated that Duke (which servers part of TV) may have smart meters. I was told that SECO did a 'test' project and decided not to pursue.

By the way, the Ham radio operator, could be mobile, and since I have not researched which frequency band was the culprit, if it was close to 27 Mhz, then a CB operator could be causing the problem.

[ggallo50]

If you have Eaton breakers, and you probably do, they are EATON BR AFC1 breakers. Your electrical contractor(Galaxy, PIKE. etc) will replace them free of charge. Warranty dept will probably blow you off if you contact them. They will say if it happens 3 times, call back. These breakers act like antennas to Ham radio and other transmitted signals. This antenna effect causes them to trip. Look on your breaker box to see who is your electrical contractor. We had 5 breakers changed last week (Gilchrist).

[Villager Joyce]

Originally Posted by ggallo50

If you have Eaton breakers, and you probably do, they are EATON BR AFC1 breakers. Your electrical contractor(Galaxy, PIKE. etc) will replace them free of charge. Warranty dept will probably blow you off if you contact them. They will say if it happens 3 times, call back. These breakers act like antennas to Ham radio and other transmitted signals. This antenna effect causes them to trip. Look on your breaker box to see who is your electrical contractor. We had 5 breakers changed last week (Gilchrist).

We called warranty and were treated with respect and courtesy. Did you call? The "probably" pretty much implies to me you probably didn't call and probably just want to stir the pot.

[ditka41]

Home Warranty could not have been more helpful and my problem was fully resolved by following their instructions, ---weeks ago! I have nothing but compliments for the manner in which they responded.

[asianthree]

Warranty dept had me call pikes. Pikes coming out in a week

[velcro]

It basically has to do with Harmonics. Years ago most all power from the grid supplied to the public was in the 3 rd Harmonics & appliances, electrical equipment is: panels ckt. breakers, xformers ,computers had no problem with handling electricity coming from the power company's in the 3rd Harmonic. Now all power supplied off the grid is in the 5th Harmonic and many times the equipment it is supplying can not handle the 5th Harmonic wave length. This difference in the cine wave is what is probably causing these older breakers to trip.

[howardandsheila]

Originally Posted by ggallo50

If you have Eaton breakers, and you probably do, they are EATON BR AFC1 breakers. Your electrical contractor(Galaxy, PIKE. etc) will replace them free of charge. Warranty dept will probably blow you off if you contact them. They will say if it happens 3 times, call back. These breakers act like antennas to Ham radio and other transmitted signals. This antenna effect causes them to trip. Look on your breaker box to see who is your electrical contractor. We had 5 breakers changed last week (Gilchrist).

I called warranty dept Monday afternoon and explained issue of tripping breakers. They said they would call appropriate electrician. Two hours later electrician called and scheduled service call. He just left after replacing all AFCI breakers with the new generation breaker. Could not have asked for better service and response.

[twoplanekid]

As always, it depends on who you talk to at the warranty department. The person I spoke with told me to keep track of the problem and call back at some future time. The people in my Lake Deaton neighborhood group suggested that I call Galaxy electric at 352-748-4868 to have them replace the in question breakers with new under warranty.

[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by twoplanekid

As always, it depends on who you talk to at the warranty department. The person I spoke with told me to keep track of the problem and call back at some future time. The people in my Lake Deaton neighborhood group suggested that I call Galaxy electric at 352-748-4868 to have them replace the in question breakers with new under warranty.

Check your panel to make sure it was galaxy, ours is Pike so it depends on who the builder subcontracted with

[twoplanekid]

Originally Posted by golfing eagles

Check your panel to make sure it was galaxy, ours is Pike so it depends on who the builder subcontracted with

As my brother took pictures of everything in his house located up the street from mine, I can tell from a picture that he has Galaxy. Since I am now in Ohio with no pictures of my breaker box cover sticker, I will call home warranty to confirm. Thanks!

[golfing eagles]

Originally Posted by twoplanekid

As my brother took pictures of everything in his house located up the street from mine, I can tell from a picture that he has Galaxy. Since I am now in Ohio with no pictures of my breaker box cover sticker, I will call home warranty to confirm. Thanks!

sorry, forgot you said you weren't coming back to like Jan-Feb

[Pa & Giggi]

This is very interesting. We have lived in St. James now for for 4+ years. We also have had this same intermittent problem most recently a few months ago which we found very annoying with the breakers. We also have had Comcast out to our home at the beginning of the summer as our internet was spotty and we couldn't get decent online service. After several attempts Comcast ended up installing (at no additional charge to us) a business type modem for a stronger signal as they questioned a possible ham radio operator in the area. Now I am wondering if the ham operator had anything to do with my poor internet signal and also for the breakers tripping? I know that Pike was the installer when our home was built.

Does anyone know after 4 years (it made 4 years in June) would this still be covered by warranty? I have my paperwork from my closing but I know that so many of you know this by heart and are so helpful. Thanks.