Expert: Bob Sponaugle - 11/10/2009

Question
My house is 24 years old. I have a 20amp circuit that services three double outlets (2 plugs each) in my kitchen, including the outlet for the gas stove and the fridge. It repeatedly trips the breaker  between 2 and 4 hours (yes, hours) after I reset it (never right away). I've replaced all the outlets on the circuit and replaced the breaker, and it still happens. It makes no difference whether anything is plugged in on the circuit or not. When the appliances are plugged into another circuit those other circuits are OK. This just started happening. What a mystery!

I doubt that this matters, but one of the outlets shares a box with another outlet on a different circuit. As you may expect,they share a white wire and one has a black second wire and the problem circuit has a red. The other circuit works fine.

Answer
Hi.

Is the circuit breaker a double pole breaker? If it has a shared neutral, it should be.  Also, GFCIs will not work properly on a shared neutral circuit, unless it is at the end of the circuit.

If you replaced all the outlets (check the dining room ones too, they should be on the same circuit) and the breaker, that pretty much leaves a problem with the wires.  There may be a short that is intermittent or a slow short. Perhaps a hot wire is touching a ground wire or a grounded metal box

If you can't find the problem, I would call an electrician for safety.

I hope this helps.

Bob