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first, please bear with me while I "set the stage" for my problem.
my basement is being finished. I had electrical service upgraded to 200
amps. I insisted on having a licensed electrician do the upgrade. when
the upgrade was completed I had reason to be concerned that the man
doing the upgrade was not licensed. I was right. my contractor said he
didn't know. (was he telling me the truth - i can't say) I had a
licensed electrician follow up and mistakes were corrected. lastly in
setting the stage I must disclose that my contractor did wire several
new basement circuits. Now the problem.
in the basement I flip up a pre- remodel existing light switch ( a
bulb for load in a very loose receptacle that is due for replacement)
and a GFI breaker is tripped. This causes a few pre -remodel lights to
go off and it also causes a few newly wired lights to go off. What
concerns me most is that the breaker that trips isn't the breaker that
allows the "bad" light switch to light the bulb. After the breaker is
tripped I see that offending light is still lit. I check it out at the
box and I determine that the bad light is controlled by a different
breaker than the one tripped. Also, so further investigation makes me
think that the pre remodel lights that do not work are on the same
circuit as the light that caused the breaker to trip. except that
theses lights follow the bad one. And end up in the breaker that
tripped. But if that is the case then the bad light also ends up at the
breaker that trips. but originates from the breaker that did not trip.
The bad light is controlled by the breaker directly above the gfi
breaker that trips. if i open the breaker the bad light does not come
on when i flip the switch and the lights that follow and the new ones
installed by the contractor also stay on. their breaker does not trip
so long as I can't get bad light to go on. It appears to me that the
breaker controlling the bad light has very little on it. Just an
outside front light as and the bad light which both stay one when the
gfi breaker trips. But as I say those pre remodel lights that I think
follow the bad light on the same circuit ( by that I mean the wire that
comes out of the bad light receptacle) will not go on once the gfi
breaker is tripped. But why then would the bad light and the one light
that comes before the bad light stay on? well, they do come from a
different breaker ( and yet blow the gfi breaker just below it) but if
the pre remodel lights go off that follow the bad light doesn't the
bad light also end up at the same place those lights end up? One final
thing to mention.
before I learned what the bad light did to the gfi breaker I noticed
that the gfi breaker had been tripped. And yet at the time the bad
light did not have a bulb in it because i had not yet replaced the
previous bulb which had been removed due to no longer having a
complete filament.
I'd appreciate any help that is offered
thank you!
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breaker tripping not as expected
