The wires in your Delaware home’s walls have ratings that determine how much electric current they can accommodate. When your electric appliances and equipment, such as your furnace, cause excessive electricity flow that the circuit can’t handle, your circuit breaker may trip. There are also several other reasons that your furnace can trip your circuit breaker, preventing your unit from reliably heating your residence this winter. You can learn which issues are easy to fix yourself and which require the assistance of an HVAC professional.
Blocked Airflow
The blower is a part of your furnace that circulates warm air in your residence. When the blower must work too hard, it can cause a circuit to trip due to overloading. Reasons that the blower may get strained include problems resulting from blocked or closed air vents or a furnace’s dirty air filter cutting off the free flow of air. Correcting these problems should prevent your furnace from working a short time and then tripping the circuit.
Shared Circuit
Running several electrical appliances or devices on a single electrical circuit can cause a circuit overload and force your furnace to trip the circuit breaker. A furnace is a powerful piece of equipment and should have its own circuit. Consider moving additional appliances to other circuits so that you can prevent them from pulling too many amps than the circuit can handle.
Short Circuit Problem
Some individuals find that their furnaces trip their circuit breakers immediately after they turn them on. This situation may be due to a short circuit in the furnace and can occur when two hot wires touch each other, preventing electricity to flow through the circuit, which increases the strength of the electric current. Short circuits often result from malfunctioning components in your furnace or wires damaged by rodents chewing on them. A short circuit in your furnace needs the immediate attention of an HVAC professional because it can destroy your furnace or lead to a fire.
Loose Connection
Your home’s breaker panel wires frequently expand and contract due to temperature changes in your residence. These changes in the wires can affect the wire connections and loosen them. You can address this problem by finding the loose connections and tightening them, or you can use the expertise of an HVAC technician to do the job.
Ground Fault
A bare hot wire should not make physical contact with a furnace ground wire. When these two wires touch, the result is often a ground fault that trips your circuit breaker. This condition, like a short circuit, is often the result of wires chewed by rodents or malfunctioning components. Unless you are a skilled electrician, you should probably contact a licensed HVAC professional to correct the problem because the fix can potentially be dangerous and may result in an electric shock.
It is important that your furnace efficiently runs this winter in Delaware so that you can keep your indoor temperatures at a comfortable level. Avoid running several appliances on one circuit and keep your furnace’s air filter clean so that it doesn’t create excessive electricity that can overwork and overload your circuit breaker. A malfunction may be due to loose breaker panel wires, which aren’t difficult to tighten, but other wire problems in your circuit breaker or your furnace may require maintenance from a heating specialist.
You can avoid the annoyance of a furnace that frequently trips your circuit breaker when you have an HVAC technician provide speedy maintenance on the unit. First Class HVAC has been providing home heating solutions for more than 40 years to residents of Delaware, in cities including Camden, Milton, and Dover, and in eastern Maryland. Contact us today for our great customer service and learn about furnace models that can quickly heat your residence, making you almost forget how cold it is outside your home this winter.