# Outdoor Lampost causing tripped breaker



## kok328 (Feb 18, 2012)

A few weeks ago I had a breaker that would trip a few minutes after being reset.  This was in a house I was working on.  I took amp readings on the circuit and it was no where near 15 amps (around 1-2 amps maybe).
I found the problem to be two outdoor lamp post on a light switch to be the culprit.  I changed the breaker to eliminate a weak/bad breaker.  Inside the lamp post I found a wirenut had fallen off but, didn't make sense that the breaker did not trip immediately upon reset, indicating a dead short so I checked all connections to make sure they were tight.  After replacing the wire nut and checking all connections and verifying the photo-eye wiring, everything seemed to work fine and lasted for 2-1/2 weeks.  Today I got a call that the problem has occurred again.  However, after all I did to correct the problem, I'm not sure what to check next.
Any ideas where to begin/continue troubleshooting?


----------



## JoeD (Feb 19, 2012)

Did it rain recently? Could be a bad underground cable that is shorting out.


----------



## kok328 (Feb 20, 2012)

I replaced the photo-eye and bulb when I did the original repairs.  Today I found that the new bulb had burned out.  The photo-eye was not new so I suspected that this was the culprit.  After reinstalling a new bulb and photo-eye, I discovered I no longer had power to the lamp post.  I just took this post off the circuit and the breaker seems to be holding.  I found about a 3ft. section of underground wire that was not buried and they ran it up under some concrete into the interior wall of the garage.  At this point, I believe your correct that the wire has gone bad (somehow) but, I have to wait for the ground to thaw before I can replace it.  Thanks for the tip.


----------

