Circuit Breaker Tripping Issue Due to Heater Load
Hi, this is John Dale here from GlobileNet. Just a customer interaction story for you. We had Raj Passi give us a call, and he had an interesting one. In fact, he said that he was having tripping problems. It was one of those times when, you know, it really got wintery. And little did I know at the time, but they had heaters on in most of the rooms. You know, those radiant heaters, which are quite powerful and suck up quite a lot of energy.
On-Site Electrical Consultation & Load Assessment
Anyway, I visited him on a normal basis. On a Saturday, in fact, I think it was on this occasion. We always provide a consultative approach to these things. As I’ve said before, the benefit for the client is that they get to know who you are and we get to know who they are.
Switchboard Inspection & Electrical Load Analysis
We can have a really good discussion about their energy usage in this case. We can have a good look at the switchboard, make a couple of educated guesses, and in this case it was pretty evident that when I looked at all the heaters and added up the collective power of those heaters, that they clearly would be overloading the circuit breakers. Not all circuit breakers, but there was one circuit in particular that they had a problem with because it affected the upstairs. One of the heaters was downstairs, so the circuit actually got split between two floors.
Dedicated Circuit Recommendation for High-Load Appliance
So what I did was I made a few recommendations. One was to actually change one of the outlets downstairs so that it was on its own circuit. The reason for that was that during our consulting, we did find that that particular heater was 3kW or something quite large, and we could survive with the upstairs ones I think they were mainly 1.5kW units without tripping.
Electrical Quotation Process & Time Investment
So it took a couple of hours going through all that, actually, which was a bit longer than I would normally take, I must admit, just to do a quote. Anyway, I did give him a quote as a consequence.
Consultative Outcome & Temporary Load Management Solution
In fact, he didn’t undertake the service because the consultative process gave him a workaround. So, you know, the weather was not going to be bad all the time, of course, and eventually after a week or two it was warmer again, so he had no necessity to act on some of those parts of the quote.
Switchboard Upgrade & Cable Overheating Issue
He did, however, proceed with parts of the quote later relating to the switchboard because there was some overheating of cables in the switchboard which may not have been related to those heater problems. I think that was more to do with the stove, and the switchboard really didn’t have some of the circuits that should have been protected as protected circuit breakers, but were just on plain circuit breakers.
Circuit Breaker Replacement & Electrical Safety Improvements
So in fact, I ended up, I think, changing quite a few of the circuit breakers. So Raj was especially happy, and so was I, by the way. I mean, it’s challenging some of these things, so it’s nice to get out of the normal mould of changing a light or something like that, you know. So this needed a bit of investigation. And I quite enjoy that part of my work.
Customer Review & Professional Electrical Service Experience
So he said, “I received a recommendation on the Nextdoor app”, which we do get quite a few leads from that, by the way. And he said I “came to his residence on a Saturday afternoon, spent nearly 2 hours investigating the causes.” I was “professional, friendly, and patient.” And you will find us professional and patient. “The quote was reasonable. There was no pressure to proceed, unlike some others. I will proceed with the quote, but more importantly, I’ve now found my go-to electrician. Thanks so much, John.” Now, if you would like to thank me and see me personally, give GlobileNet a call. Thank you.
