Heater tripping off outside breaker

hvac

I have a Payne AC/Heat unit outside my mobile home. When I turn the thermostat to heat, it runs and blows air for about 10 seconds and then trips the outside breaker at the meter… From the meter I have two double breakers, one to the fuse box in the house and the other, two connected 60amp breakers directly to the ac/ heat unit. I run my ac just fine no problems, but turn on the heat and it continues tripping the breaker… Any ideas or suggestions…. thanks

Best Answer

First the heater needs air flow prior to turning on the heat. If the blower is working then the contactor pulls in and energizes the heating coils. Since it is tripping the breaker at this point I would be looking for a broken nichrome wire in the heating element that is touching some metal or shorting to ground. Many times a visual inspection can find the problem a broken coil of wire or a hole in the metal where you can’t see the actual wire.

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