safe way to trip a breaker?

[wbsettle]

I'm trying to identify the breaker supplying an attic exhaust fan. Fan's motor appears to be dead; touchless sensor shows power all the way up to the motor housing. Conveniently it's clearly sharing a circuit with an outlet and basic light fixture also mounted in the attic. One by one, I've gone through all breakers that were labeled to indicate they had something to do with second floor power...no joy. Even randomly cycled a few unrelated circuits with no luck. That still leaves more than half the panel to go and I'm tired of running from the garage to the attic scuttle hole and back.

I'd rather avoid buying a $40ish breaker tracer for a one time use. Yes, I realize I *could* buy, use, and return, but my ethics don't allow me to work like that.

So, is there a safe way to intentionally trip a breaker via an outlet?

Thanks.

-Brent

[Tom Slick]

If you have a multimeter or continuity tester, don't mind turning off the main, and feel confident to work in your load center then you can find the circuit with these steps:

turn off the main
connect the hot and neutral at the exhaust fan
go back to the panel and test for continuity from the neutral bus to each of the circuit breakers
when you get continuity you have found your circuit
turn that CB off
go back up to the attic and undo the neutral/hot connection
turn main back on
finish whatever work you needed to work on

Disclaimer:
follow all safe practices when working around electricity, including testing circuits that are "off" to make sure they are off.

[LCHIEN]

Plug a loud radio into the outlet by the fan; you said this is on the same circuit.
When you're down by the breaker maybe you can hear this radio or station your wife or helper halfway... like at the attic door where they can shout to you. Then start flipping breakers.

Or put your wife/helper in the attic by the light/electrical outlet with a radio or light and give them a cell phone. Take yours with you to the breaker box.


Or, just kill the main breaker and fix the fan and then turn the main back on. Its not like you'll be doing something else...

you sure the fan is not themostatically controlled?

[LinuxRandal]

Plug a loud radio into the outlet by the fan; you said this is on the same circuit.
When you're down by the breaker maybe you can hear this radio or station your wife or helper halfway... like at the attic door where they can shout to you. Then start flipping breakers.

Or put your wife/helper in the attic by the light/electrical outlet with a radio or light and give them a cell phone. Take yours with you to the breaker box.


Or, just kill the main breaker and fix the fan and then turn the main back on. Its not like you'll be doing something else...

BINGO, MAJOR TIMESAVER.


But, DON'T forget to LABEL the ones you know after this!!!!

[gerti]

Place some lamp near a window you can see from the garage, and use an extension cord to power it from the outlet.

[jhart]

Something I did in our old 115 year old house was to diagram all three floors and indicate all lights, outlets and switches. With help from 5 others, lights, radios, noise makers plugged into outlets, etc. had one person start turning off circuit breakers and then mark on the diagram what circuit # turned off each. You could also do it with one other person and do one floor at a time. Phones in the house with an intercom worked well for talking back and forth. I keep the diagrams on a clipboard under the circuit box. Really makes it easy to find the proper one.

Even ended up doing the same thing in a couple of my apartments.

[thrytis]

If the attic is just too far away from the breaker box for the sound or light of the other suggestions, do you have a cordless phone? Most phone handsets will indicate when the base is unplugged (e.g. "Searching for Base" message), so you can plug the base into the outlet and take the handset to the breaker box. Then just flip breakers until the phone beeps at you.

[Schleeper]

I've been through this exercise more times than I care to admit. After I got totally fed up with playing that game, my wife and I spent a little time making up a list showing what's on each circuit. (It's separate from the label attached to the door of the electrical panel, because that one doesn't have enough room for details.)

First, we turned on all the lights, ceiling fans, TVs, etc. We plugged lamps, radios, and anything else that could reasonably be used as an indicator, into the unused outlets. Our land line phones are the 2.4GHz cordless variety that can also be used as an intercom, so we each grabbed a handset. One by one, I tripped the breakers and LOML would let me know what turned off.

Having someone helping is definitely the way to go; using a loud radio or visible light is the next best thing. From out in the garage where my panel is located, I would never be able to hear a radio, or see a light, located in the attic. However, I could use the radio and two phones, even if I was doing it by myself.

Those thermostatically controlled attic exhaust fans are a lot like sump pumps. They're located in the most remote areas of the house, and they're designed to turn on automatically, as needed. We put 'em in, forget about 'em, and just take it for granted that they're always going to work. The truth is, they have a pretty high failure rate, and often stop operating long before the homeowner becomes aware of it. They eventually discover that their pump is shot when they're ankle deep in muddy water. The attic fan, on the other hand, can go undetected for years. That's when your roofer tells you that the old sheathing has to be removed as part of that premature roof job!

[smorris]

Long ago at a rather young age I found I could trip a breaker as you describe with a hairpin. Of course I also learned it wasn't painless at the same time, both from the initial event and mom when she caught up to me.

[twistsol]

You could try the method my three daughters used every day for a year and plug in three curling irons, three hair straighteners (which I would think would cancel each other out) and three hair dryers, turn them all on a once and then yell DAD!

The bathroom they share now has three separate 20 amp circuits.

[wbsettle]

You could try the method my three daughters used every day for a year and plug in three curling irons, three hair straighteners (which I would think would cancel each other out) and three hair dryers, turn them all on a once and then yell DAD!

The bathroom they share now has three separate 20 amp circuits.

Now there's a strategy I like. I was thinking of ways to trip by short circuit, but an overload would be just as effective. The wife's got an antique hair dryer that's almost enough by itself...using it and her backup should be plenty as long as I'm looking for a 15/20 amp breaker.

Or, just kill the main breaker and fix the fan and then turn the main back on. Its not like you'll be doing something else...

you sure the fan is not themostatically controlled?

The other residents of the house might prefer to have power while yet another project takes 3x longer than planned.

It is thermostatic and I've verified the thermostat/humidistat are functional. Set them above the necessary cut on point and no current passes, according to the touchless sensor...swing things the other way, current flows.

The attic fan, on the other hand, can go undetected for years.

Schleeper, I've kind of known the fan was dead since we bought the house in '04...unknown how long it was non-operational before that. Even now, I'm not sure it's really worth the effort, but it *should* be a relatively easy job to find out. And after discovering last summer that our upstairs A/C unit can't even hold 80° when the air temps get above 90°, I need to try something. Son's bed time is 7:30-8:00ish, but on a day like today, it'll probably be 11:00 before the temp up here drops below 78; currently still 81 at 7:45, making it a bit stuffy for sleeping. Had the unit checked and it's working fine, but apparently was sized by the square footage of the upstairs without taking into account the house style, Cape Cod/Low Country, which puts roof line/attic space on three sides of the upstairs living space or the 400 square feet that the original homeowner added after initial occupancy via a FROG. Naturally, the downstairs unit is 1/2 ton larger with less square footage and heat gain to fight...probably could hold 72° or better all day if I asked it to.

All, thanks for the other suggestions as well. We do have the intercom type cordless phones, but in our relatively short marital period, I've already developed a good sense of what projects are best shared. I'd also like to avoid reprogramming/resetting/reconfiguring any more household devices than I have to, which would be inevitable if I went breaker by breaker...Murphy says it'll be the very last one I flip.

As it is, I couldn't find anything effected by one of the breakers labeled "uptairs lts/rec". Go figure! With the stuff I keep finding, I'm some times truly amazed that this house survived the 10 years prior to my ownership.

-Brent

[Thalermade]

You could try the method my three daughters used every day for a year and plug in three curling irons, three hair straighteners (which I would think would cancel each other out) and three hair dryers, turn them all on a once and then yell DAD!

The bathroom they share now has three separate 20 amp circuits.

That is so funny!! I guess I should be glad I only have the one teenage daughter!

One other thought for the folks who might be mapping out their circuits, is to also include the GFCI circuits. In some of the houses, built in the past decade it is interesting what all outlets have been attached to GFCI.

My neighbors outside outlet was attached to a GFCI in his basement, while mine is attached to a GFCI in the garage. Same builder. Same electrical contractor. Go figure.

Russ

[LCHIEN]

Long ago at a rather young age I found I could trip a breaker as you describe with a hairpin. Of course I also learned it wasn't painless at the same time, both from the initial event and mom when she caught up to me.

My son found out a pair tweezers fits perfectly... too much of that fischer price shape matching toy stuff, I guess.

Didn't hurt him any but my wife burned her hand on the tweezers when she picked them up off the floor where they fell. I had to replace the outlet. And the tweezers. I didn't punish or scold him, didn't seem to be much point to that. And after all we had left the child-protecting caps off that outlet, I blame the person who used the vacuum last.

He also put the remote control into the VCR slot one time.