Question about main circuit breaker at my house?

Question

The main circuit breaker on the side, at the outside out my house is overheating and pops. All electricity inside the house gets turned off when this hapens. It tends to happen whenever I use the AC on a hot day. The electrician says that this 90 AMP circuit breaker needs to be replaced. The problem is that he says that they don't make these 90 AMP circuit breakers anymore. They only have them in 100 AMP. He says it's safe to go up from 90 to 100 AMP.

Is this safe to do at my house? Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

It sounds like you are overloading the circuit.

A circuit breaker trips when:

To much current flows through it

There is a short or ground fault

Breaker is bad

To find out if there is to much current flow, you need to test the main feeders with an ampmeter, preferably on a hot day with AC running.

If your panel is pulling more than 90 amps, the main should trip. That is what it is supposed to do.

If it is not pulling anywhere near 90 amps, the breaker is bad and needs to be replaced.

You need to look at the panel and see what the bussing is rated at. It is probably rated at 100 or even 125 amps. If so, you can safely replace the main with a 100 A. Do not replace it with a 200 A breaker as one poster has said.

You might think about upgrading to a 200 A panel. This will give you the capacity to add more circuits in the future.

Answer 2

Ask your power provider if they have the proper wiring for your upgrade.I would say they do is just a mater of asking them to make sure.If they say yes and only then your electrician could upgrade your breaker.U still have home work to do in order to find out if 100 Amps are OK for your house.U should get all your appliances watt usage and lighting add them all together and u will find out how many amps u going to need. Putting in a bigger breaker don't mean your system can take it.

Answer 3

as you have two more CBs, these CBs will take care of fault current less than 100A. so you can replace it by 100A

Answer 4

Yes ,its the main and probably has just gotten weak.

Answer 5

trust your electrician, let him install the 100 amp for now, but what you might consider in the future is to up grade your electrical service to 200amps, while your electrician is there get a quote.  It should cost about $450 for the parts and $200 for labor, but then again he could already have the parts and be willing to cut you a deal

Answer 6

If your breaker is closing all the time, means the system is being overloaded, a sparky should inform you of options besides upping the size of the breaker, we had an extra line put in, so that not so many items are running at the same time, sounds iffy in increasing the breaker, means something is overheating, maybe even melting b4 switching off, get another opinion

Answer 7

Your main 90 amp  breaker is probably weak...

You should have the breaker replaced with a 100 amp.

If it was your AC it would trip the breaker for the circuit that you AC is on..

Answer 8

Your wire size going into the house from your disconnect outside is probably rated for 100A.  They don't make wire rated for only 90A.  I would assume your electrician is aware of wire rating.

Answer 9

yes you can put a 200 amp on there and it will work

the amp is what it needs to work you can always use more no problem