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Topic: Misbalancing load across different breakers in an apt can cause grounding fault? (Read 683 times)

legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1068
I'm trying to figure out why when i load a certain combination of breakers to 10-12A(rated 15A), all their respective surge protector's Not Grounded/Wiring Fault (red LED) light up. (Belkin and APC).

Basically, if i load up #6/#8(linked 15+15a), #11 and #13 to 10-12A all of them, they all have their respective red LED immediately turn on.
Is it possible unrelated breakers all share some sub loadcenter?

The main loadcenter is at about 55% continuous load(I think? IT says 125A 120/240 but i'm running everything on 120). I'm a bit worried it doesnt seem have a mainload breaker. Anyways.

When i take the load off any aforementioned breaker, all of the error leds turn off and i can for instance plug what was in #11 into #9 and everything work with no warning lights.

Thoughts?

What kinda place do you live in are we talking apartment? House?


When you say it is not "mainload breker" do you mean it is a subpanal?

Sorry i wrote apt in title because of the character limit. I meant apartment.
I mean its called a loadcenter rated 125a. So all the 15a breakers go through "that". But if it goes over 125a, there's no main breaker, so i'm guessing it would be very bad if "that" overloaded.

I'm guessing either there's a fuse inside the breaker board or there's a breaker in the main apartment building controller room.

Your building is probably 3 phase like most large apartments are if you are in the USA.  Most likely you ground is high resistance or non exsistant.  Some dumb as is probably using the neutral as the ground in your panel, or your ground has a high resistance so neutral is the preferred route.  So when you power up a lot of 120v items the neutral/ground is receiving a lot of power.  Your GFCI are detecting the voltage and tripping.

Just my guess.

If you change out all your gear to 240v this problem should go away ( this would be the safer thing to do).  Or if you do not care about NEC code and trust your power company to always give you a neutral then you can remove the bonding jumper from your panel.  Its the green screw. I would not recommend this but it would get rid of the Ground Fault. Unless of course you have no ground and the Neutral is being used for both.

I'm in Canada, not the US, but i doubt we have very different electric standards. All my breakers are 120v except maybe my heating and oven. And the cost of changing stuff to 240 aside, it might be a bit hard to explain to the corporate landlord why i did that when i move out or when they inspect next year.

But the thing is, by changing which breaker has the load, i'm able to make the warning wiring fault led go completely away while maintaining the same or even more load overall in my appartment. Hence my question, as i don't understand how that is happening.

My "electric company" is government owned and everyone is on Hydro. Everything is standardized, legally so. So i'm guessing we have the standard in electric safety well enforced by inspectors.

Regardless, since i'm running absolutely everything at full power right now with no warning LED, i'm trying to understand so that i can more safely continue adding a bit more hardware without doing an electric overhaul and preventing any sort of electric failure or overload.
hero member
Activity: 882
Merit: 500
Where am I?
Your building is probably 3 phase like most large apartments are if you are in the USA.  Most likely you ground is high resistance or non exsistant.  Some dumb as is probably using the neutral as the ground in your panel, or your ground has a high resistance so neutral is the preferred route.  So when you power up a lot of 120v items the neutral/ground is receiving a lot of power.  Your GFCI are detecting the voltage and tripping.

Just my guess.

If you change out all your gear to 240v this problem should go away ( this would be the safer thing to do).  Or if you do not care about NEC code and trust your power company to always give you a neutral then you can remove the bonding jumper from your panel.  Its the green screw. I would not recommend this but it would get rid of the Ground Fault. Unless of course you have no ground and the Neutral is being used for both.
legendary
Activity: 1456
Merit: 1000
I'm trying to figure out why when i load a certain combination of breakers to 10-12A(rated 15A), all their respective surge protector's Not Grounded/Wiring Fault (red LED) light up. (Belkin and APC).

Basically, if i load up #6/#8(linked 15+15a), #11 and #13 to 10-12A all of them, they all have their respective red LED immediately turn on.
Is it possible unrelated breakers all share some sub loadcenter?

The main loadcenter is at about 55% continuous load(I think? IT says 125A 120/240 but i'm running everything on 120). I'm a bit worried it doesnt seem have a mainload breaker. Anyways.

When i take the load off any aforementioned breaker, all of the error leds turn off and i can for instance plug what was in #11 into #9 and everything work with no warning lights.

Thoughts?

What kinda place do you live in are we talking apartment? House?


When you say it is not "mainload breker" do you mean it is a subpanal?
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1068
I'm trying to figure out why when i load a certain combination of breakers to 10-12A(rated 15A), all their respective surge protector's Not Grounded/Wiring Fault (red LED) light up. (Belkin and APC).

Basically, if i load up #6/#8(linked 15+15a), #11 and #13 to 10-12A all of them, they all have their respective red LED immediately turn on.
Is it possible unrelated breakers all share some sub loadcenter?

The main loadcenter is at about 55% continuous load(I think? IT says 125A 120/240 but i'm running everything on 120). I'm a bit worried it doesnt seem have a mainload breaker. Anyways.

When i take the load off any aforementioned breaker, all of the error leds turn off and i can for instance plug what was in #11 into #9 and everything work with no warning lights.

Thoughts?
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