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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

Bad Breakers
 

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.:22yikes:

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.

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

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

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.

That has nothing to do with it, Eaton (the breaker manufacture) is replacing them, think of it as product recall, not home warranty, call the electrician on your breaker panel.

Done ez

Exactly. Our home was built in 2012. We are second owners. Galaxy did electrical. When I called warranty dept, they made arrangements with Galaxy. Galaxy called and set up time convenient for us. Very nice young man came to house today and replaced them. He said that is all he is doing right now, replacing the Eaton breakers.

We have Eaton breakers as I just checked our box out in the garage, so I guess I will start with the warranty dept, and if that doesn't work, I will call Pike's. In fact I know that we even had Pike's out here over 3 years ago over this issue and they couldn't find anything.

I love the info I can get from this message board. Thanks.

I believe a number of us went through warranty and they either made the call to the electric company or gave the contact info to the owner. There is absolutely no reason not to call warranty first. They are not the devil. They are good people wth a wealth of information. They will talk with you if your home is out of warranty.

They can be helpful but it also depends on who you talk to about an issue. Our paid home inspector pointed out a scratched window in our lanai above the sliding lanai doors. I was told by home warranty to contact the builder who stated that the “claim you had sent to us in regards to a scratched window pane is being denied due to this request being outside the warranty criteria for cosmetics. Custom windows can help you with this if you are still wanting to address this yourself, our warranty staff can provide you with their contact number if you like. Sorry I was unable to help you with this issue.”

I send an e-mail email to the builder asking for clarification on “What is being outside the warranty criteria for cosmetics. Are you talking about a time period or something else?”

I am still awaiting a response from the builder. Our one year warranty ends in December.

Comcast is over fiber optic and coaxial cable, both of which are impervious to Ham radio transmitter operation. I suspect the person servicing your house did/does not have a clue what is going on. We had problems at our house, and the signal from Comcast WAS TOO STRONG and was overloading the Comcast modem, this was adjusted at the box where our cable connects to the Comcast equipment, now have very reasonable internet service.
Hope this helps.

Thanks Villagethinker. We had no signal from Comcast for our computer, so that is why they had to install a business modem to boost our signal which solved our problem. I don't know why we couldn't get a signal after 3 years of everything working fine, all I knew was that I wanted to go online and stay online without losing my signal. Thanks so much for explaining this to me.

Since we have been in our house almost 2 yrs, our one yr warranty period is over. As far as electric, I was told by warranty that electric wiring is covered for 2 yrs. I spoke with R & A Electric who did the original work on our house. They will replace the Easton breakers which are under warranty, but the service call to replace the 7 Eaton breakers will be $75.

I live on Tranquility Lane in St. James and last night about 8:15, all the breakers tripped on our street. I wasn't home but fortunately, some of our good neighbors helped my wife out resetting them. Anyone else have this problem last night, 10/12/15?

Yes, in Buttonwood. About 1/2 the house. Reset breakers.

See post 97 and watch the youtube.

I wonder if no one knows which houses have the defective Eaton breakers? Would you really expect to keep records on every single product that goes into a house?

One way to find out would be to drive around with a ham radio and broadcast at 17 meters and wait for the complaints from the homes where the breakers are tripping.


I think it's Eaton's responsibility to find the home owners if there is a recall.

I think that folks that don't read the forum are totally unaware of the defective breakers.

TV should publish something in the newspapers about this,
Eaton is paying for the replacements.

I suspect all homes built after a certain date have the problem.

No I don't think it's all homes built at a certain time or they all would trip. I think it's only the homes with a certain make, model and maybe lot number of eaton breaker.

We had a breaker go out in the evening, 10/12/15. Just one. Repair man had been here during the day replacing our refrigerator ice maker, and I thought that might have something to do with it, but it was not on that breaker.

First time it's happened since we moved in beginning of 2012.

right now they are replacing at no cost that may change in the future, so why wait.

It can cost about $300

The breakers are under warranty- but if you are over the 1 yr warranty, there is a fee for the service call. I guess it would depend on the company you use. R&A is charging $75 for the service call to replace.

Interesting that Galaxy is not charging for the service call to do the replacement. I would think the replacements need to be done by the company that put them in. I will check with R & A to see if they have to be the company to do the replacement.
Thanks for the info.

1 year has nothing to do with the replacement.

I know of several companies that replaced at no cost.

Who is R&A

R&A Industries, Inc.- residential / commercial contractors., Electrical, air & heat, plumbing.
When I called warranty, they gave me R&A as the contractor that did the electrical work. They gave me their phone # & said to call them. R&A told me there is a $75 service fee.
I will call them in the morning & find out if I have to use them & question the servic fee.
It s worth a try.
Thanks!

Ditto here. 4 year old house. We are second owners. Warranty dept called Galaxy for us, they replaced all AFCI breakers. No service charge. No hassle and no complaints.

Love the villages.