I went on a breaker flipping binge the other day because the panel at my house wasn't labeled and I had a doorbell transformer to replace. After I got the doorbell finished I realized the fridge wasn't running. Investigated and found that the issue is the breakers have some wiggle to them, not flopping around but if you apply slight pressure to top or bottom they move a fair bit. Can reliably get fridge to turn off by wiggling that breaker.
The Wiggle (animated gif but seems to only go if clicked on):
I'm not super comfortable with fussing in the main panel, I'm just wondering if I should expect an electrician to want to replace the whole panel? Does replacing the whole panel seem reasonable for something like this? Should I just swap out this one breaker for now and see if that helps?
Best Answer
Boy, that's a classic. Is it a GE?
It's fine, just replace the offending breaker, and have your electrician check the others while he's there. The looseness is in the breaker, not the panel itself.