Outage Map

How to Check Cir­cuit Break­ers

Parts of your home – includ­ing out­lets and entire walls – can lose pow­er when cir­cuits are over­loaded. If pow­er goes out unex­pect­ed­ly in part of your home, con­sid­er check­ing your home’s cir­cuit break­ers before call­ing to report an out­age.

Here’s how to do it:

Find your elec­tri­cal pan­el or break­er box. Inside, you’ll see black switch­es. These are the cir­cuit break­ers.

If a cir­cuit break­er is tripped, it may appear to be in the same posi­tion as the oth­ers. But it won’t be ful­ly in the ON posi­tion. The switch will feel a lit­tle loose when you wig­gle it.

Find the affect­ed break­er and flip it to the OFF posi­tion. If you don’t think there is an elec­tri­cal over­load, try flip­ping the break­er back to the ON posi­tion.

If the break­er trips again and you do sus­pect an elec­tri­cal over­load, unplug any appli­ances or oth­er items in the area not receiv­ing pow­er, then flip the break­er back to the ON posi­tion.

Wait a few sec­onds, then slow­ly begin plug­ging in and turn­ing on the equip­ment to deter­mine which item is caus­ing the over­load. If the cir­cuit trips again when an item is plugged in, that item is caus­ing the over­load. Try mov­ing it to a dif­fer­ent out­let in your home.

If the cir­cuit con­tin­ues to trip, or if it won’t flip the ON posi­tion, stop try­ing to reset the break­er. There may be a prob­lem with the cir­cuit or with the break­er itself. If that’s the case, you’ll need to con­tact a qual­i­fied elec­tri­cian imme­di­ate­ly.

Ques­tions? Con­tact us to learn more.