With the rush of Fall and the warmer weather playing as the "x-factor," this scenario is completely plausible. In fact, some of you may be reading this right now saying, "That just happened to me!" Or maybe it was a neighbor or a relative. This is typically an indicator that something is clearly not right with your electrical.
There are many possibilities of what is causing the outage. Without properly assessing the situation, we cannot say exactly what is happening with your property, but we can say that it could be one or more of these things to look out for:
1) Your circuits or wiring are overloading. This may be a more obvious scenario. Your power usage has increased over time, but your house hasn't been upgraded to accommodate your power needs. If this is the case, you want not only your electrical panel checked, but really the wiring throughout your house. Sometimes older houses have older wiring that needs to be replaced with modern standards. These standards are also for safety.
2) Your electrical outlets may not be grounded properly. This could be another reason why your power starts to trip. When your circuits are overloading, the wiring gets hotter because the electricity is arcing. If you notice your outlets are not three-pronged, this could be another sign that you need an electrician to assess your house.
3) You use a lot of extension cords. This may come as a surprise to some people. Believe it or not, the usage of extension cords may be causing the electrical problems. Extension cords are meant to be used for temporary electrical distribution. Some people use extension cords as a more permanent basis. Some homeowners are shocked to find power being distributed within the walls of their house by an extension cord! All of this is not only dangerous, but illegal and wouldn't pass inspection. In fact, if this were to happen at a place of employment, the long-term use of extension cords would be a violation of OSHA regulations1.
4) You added an addition to your house. Maybe you added electrical coils on your roof to prevent ice dams from forming this Winter. Or maybe you added a new section to your house. Now that the addition is complete, you notice you're experiencing frequent power outages. This could point back to the electrical panel needing an upgrade and / or the wiring wasn't done correctly to the new addition.
There could be other reasons why your electrical panel keeps tripping. At this point, the problem should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Regardless of what the actual reason of why this is happening, you should address this immediately. There could be some important safety measures that need to be fixed. In the U.S., electrical fires causing fatalities or property damage accounts for about 10% of all fires2. Let us form a reasonable solution so that you can sleep well at night knowing you were able to get all your Summer projects done in time.
As your local electrician based in Wilmington, MA, we're ready to service you whether you're in Southern New Hampshire or throughout the Greater Boston area. For more information, please visit our website. You can also email us at info@modernelc.com.
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1 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) https://www.osha.gov/law-regs.html
2 U.S. Fire Administration https://www.usfa.fema.gov/data/statistics/
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