HPWC/breaker almost caught fire...thoughts?

[brkaus]

I would also grab photos of the sticker in the box that shows list of the compatible breakers & the melted breaker.

Sounds you you were very lucky that the heat was contained!

My parents breaker box exploded when I was a teen. Apparently one of the breakers didn't have good contact. Every time our pool pump when on it was arcing. Eventually something melted enough to cross the two bus bars and a good section of the bus bar melted in an explosion.

The windows on the car that was parked on that side of the garage were pitted by the molten metal.

 

[Ostrichsak]

I almost never need full power from my HPWC. I always run my charging at 25amp so that everything stays relatively cool. I believe in the long run, I will get longer life out of my wiring and charging equipment. On those few days I really need to charge faster I move the amps up.

If your installation is done properly there should be no excessive heat.

 

[MN-MS100D]

I apologize for my snarky attitude; I was beginning to think this was some click bait story, but you are correct: What would be the motive to do so? I am truly sorry.

That panel is seriously damaged and should no longer be in service. It looks like your electrician cut the busbars off the lower end of the panel. Ask him to replace the entire panel with a bolt-on breaker panel (not stab-lok or other friction fit breakers). I beleive Square D has residential style panel that accepts both types of breakers (only the HPWC breaker needs to be bolt-in type).

 

[Ostrichsak]

I apologize for my snarky attitude; I was beginning to think this was some click bait story, but you are correct: What would be the motive to do so? I am truly sorry.

That panel is seriously damaged and should no longer be in service. It looks like your electrician cut the busbars off the lower end of the panel. Ask him to replace the entire panel with a bolt-on breaker panel (not stab-lok or other friction fit breakers). I beleive Square D has residential style panel that accepts both types of breakers (only the HPWC breaker needs to be bolt-in type).

You don't HAVE to have a bolt-on panel if you buy a quality panel and make sure the breakers are installed/pushed on properly. Personally, I have a Square D QO panel and I'm a fan. It's also nice that local home improvement shops carry a full range of breakers for those panels because I find myself needing something quickly to complete a project. I fully trust a 100A Square D QO breaker/panel because it's really hard to mess that connection up. There's far more possibility for error involving the other connections & wiring than that connection.

 

[Zishan]

I apologize for my snarky attitude; I was beginning to think this was some click bait story, but you are correct: What would be the motive to do so? I am truly sorry.

That panel is seriously damaged and should no longer be in service. It looks like your electrician cut the busbars off the lower end of the panel. Ask him to replace the entire panel with a bolt-on breaker panel (not stab-lok or other friction fit breakers). I beleive Square D has residential style panel that accepts both types of breakers (only the HPWC breaker needs to be bolt-in type).

Thank you for the kind words, respect.



And thanks everyone for the feedback. Because of your comments and recommendations, I've put in a call to the electrician to have the box replaced. Hopefully we will not encounter any more issues. But I will update everyone.

In the meantime, let me add some additional pieces of information. Sorry, I didn't intend for this thread to be so long winded.

1. Now that I think about it, our house did flood during Hurricane Harvey. I have little faith in the people who did the electrical work as they robbed us. Literally. Disconnected our alarm, left a back window unlocked, returned at night and robbed us.

2. After the little electrical incident, the electrician did notice a very very very light vibration feeling from the wire. I apologize, I cannot recall which gauge wire he used. But he found it extremely strange and said he had never experienced that before.

3. The HPWC is a Gen 2. At the time, Tesla was sold out of the 24ft ones and I found a lightly used one locally. Someone bought a house and the Tesla charger was there and not needed. He didn't own a Tesla. It was in good condition, included plenty of wiring, but again used. The electrician actually recommended a different gauge, I think thicker, but the details slip my mind as it was months ago.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Thank you for the kind words, respect.



And thanks everyone for the feedback. Because of your comments and recommendations, I've put in a call to the electrician to have the box replaced. Hopefully we will not encounter any more issues. But I will update everyone.

In the meantime, let me add some additional pieces of information. Sorry, I didn't intend for this thread to be so long winded.

1. Now that I think about it, our house did flood during Hurricane Harvey. I have little faith in the people who did the electrical work as they robbed us. Literally. Disconnected our alarm, left a back window unlocked, returned at night and robbed us.

2. After the little electrical incident, the electrician did notice a very very very light vibration feeling from the wire. I apologize, I cannot recall which gauge wire he used. But he found it extremely strange and said he had never experienced that before.

3. The HPWC is a Gen 2. At the time, Tesla was sold out of the 24ft ones and I found a lightly used one locally. Someone bought a house and the Tesla charger was there and not needed. He didn't own a Tesla. It was in good condition, included plenty of wiring, but again used. The electrician actually recommended a different gauge, I think thicker, but the details slip my mind as it was months ago.

Vibration feeling on the wires?

You need to call multiple electricians. You're in Houston, TX so you have no reason to not have this looked at by a dozen electricians or more. There should be enough competition that you'll find someone who knows what they're doing AND charges a reasonable rate. It's going to take some effort on your part to receive that many quotes but I'm not sure why you're going about this so nonchalantly when you clearly could have had your house burn to the ground and/or lost your life in a worst case scenario situation with what happened.

Perhaps we didn't impress upon you the potential severity and this still exists if you have another crap Electrician in there monkeying around with things. Based on what you've been through via these posts I'm not sure why you keep talking about an electrician in the singular tense.

If you take nothing else from this thread other than you need to have this looked at by as many professionals who are willing to look at it then the thread was a success.

 

[brkaus]

Dang. That all sucks.

Wonder if someone bolted a wrong bus bar setup into the case? Are there more pieces that came out of the burned box?

if so, I would hope the new electrician would have flagged it.

 

[murphyS90D]

Please tell your electrician that you want copper ferrules on the end of every stranded wire. Don't let him talk you out of using them. If he doesn't have them they are available on Amazon and at any electrical supply store. That is not Lowe's and Home Depot.

 

[Rocky_H]

And it's not necessarily that something was done wrong to begin with, but that's a pretty significant detail that the house had been flooded before. If that panel had gotten submerged under some brackish water, it could have corrosion in the breakers and the bus bars and have bad connections on them, and the higher current things will expose that defect quicker.

 

[mongo]

2. After the little electrical incident, the electrician did notice a very very very light vibration feeling from the wire. I apologize, I cannot recall which gauge wire he used. But he found it extremely strange and said he had never experienced that before.

That is due to the current generating an AC magnetic field. Our swim spa does the same thing. Not a problem, nor due to wire gauge (of course, thicker wire vibrates less due to stiffness).

 

[David.85D]

The photo really seems to show white paint overspray inside the electrical panel. If that’s the case, and someone installed the breaker over the bus bars with paint residue, that might have caused the heating.

just a guess.

and, it’s a good idea, no matter whether they are required or not, To install smoke detectors in the same room/closet as the breaker panel.

 

[Lloyd]

Looks to me like the bus bar was cut, and the ends are extending outward preventing the last breaker on that bar from seating completely. Totally a bad installation.

 

[electronK]

Zishan, I am a recently retired Electrical Contractor who specialized in complex installations, troubleshooting and automation. I have installed a good number of charging solutions for Tesla vehicles in my area. I've been at this a long time. Based on the picture, it looks very likely that the issue was a poorly seated push in breaker (meaning not seated fully on the panel bus bars), or the breaker itself was faulty at the point at which it is designed to engage with the bus bar. I have seen this kind of issue before (across all kinds of applications; meaning not just residential panels, but large commercial load centers as well) and it is one of the weak points of a push in panel design. Panel replacement is strongly recommended, and seating the circuit breakers in place firmly (but not with excessive force - that's another story) allows for proper operation at your HPWC rated load.

 

[cmghoughton]

I didn't see the wire for the HPWC's breaker in that pic. The wires in your box all looks pretty small, gauge that is. I just ran a 14-50 style plug on my home and plan to upgrade to a HPWC someday but the wire that I ran was thick as hell. I'm going to go check my breaker tonight when I'm charging make sure it's not heating up. Go for insurance on that, so sorry that happened

 

[etischer]

I would check that the 60A breaker was compatible with your box. A lot of times the breaker box is 30+ years old, and the breakers that are designed to work with them are obsolete, so electricians find one that fits, but the electrical contacts might not engage fully. A Siemens breaker might snap into a old Eaton breaker box, but the electrical connection might not be legit. It could also be the box was not designed to take a 60A breaker.

As for Ferrules, they are designed only for stranded wire, it constrains the strands so the strands can't relax themselves loose around the bolt that clamps the wire in place. Ferrules are a requirement if the clamp that is clamping the wire doesn't fully constrain the strands, for example a simple bolt clamp. A cage style clamp doesn't require ferrules since the strands are constrained on all sides. Even solid wire works loose over time due to thermal cycling, and requires re-torquing every few years.

A 60A breaker is designed for 48A continuous load per NFPA79 / NEC. The HPWC should be configured for 48A.

 

[slatterj]

I had a similar issue last year. I have a dedicated 60 Amp panel that feeds my Tesla wall connector. I had my electrician look check things when the strip on the connector was yellow and not charging the car. The panel and breaker was fine but the terminals in the connector were melted. I called Tesla and the tech said from prior experiences and that I live in the northeast, the screws became loose from seasonal temperatures. They mailed me out a new unit and suggested that I check the connection at least once a year to make sure the connection was tight.

 

[Bill25cycle]

Gen 2 HPWC
2016.5 Tesla S P90DL
48 amp charging/60 amp breaker

Video and pic below


So I say HPWC/breaker, because I'm not sure what the problem was. My electrician came and looked at it and couldn't say definitively either. Likely a bad "breaker" so he replaced it(the breaker) and said I will need a new panel.

Since then, I have installed a smoke/carbon monoxide detector, just to be safe. A few times I could smell something burning, same smell as the time it almost caught fire, so I started charging at 30 amps....with a fire extinguisher handy. Side note, hanging out in the garage, I've gotten a lot of cleaning done. Charging at 30 seemed ok, but the breaker still got warm.

Now, a few weeks later, my car stopped charging. Turns out the breaker was getting hot and causing the HPWC to stop charging, but not tripping the 60 amp breaker. Also caused some adjacent breaks to get hot and trip.

So trying to determine my path forward. Replace breaker again? Or is the HPWC bad? If I let the breaker cool down, reset the breaker, and then reset the HPWC, it works but I'm not comfortable using it.

Thoughts?



Breaker for HPWC was installed at the bottom and you can see how it burnt upward.

View attachment 549080

Hi, I'm an electrician in the Buffalo, NY area.....

What you HAD is an Eaton (BR style - for the old Westinghouse/Bryant line) panel that is a cost-reduced model.

Provided that the 60 ampere double pole breaker was fully inserted into the aluminum bus - the problem that you are experiencing is AT THE BUS STABS, and not necessarily at the breaker connection. That stuff about 'copper ferrules' others have mentioned are simply not needed in this country....I'm assuming the electrician used stranded copper wire, but aluminum is also ok if the conductor has been properly shined and greased with oxyban.

One thing no one else has mentioned is that the stabs that the breaker were plugged into were the ones in the panel allowing so-called half size breakers... These have less aluminum in the stabs than the other stabs in the panel that are not notched out. I would always put such a heavy load (48 amperes) on a non-notched stab.

I would, at a minimum, consider going to a slightly more expensive panel, such as Eaton's 'CH Line' (for the old Cutler Hammer), where the stabs are somewhat more substantial and are of copper construction.

Whatever you or your electrician decide to do (I'm assuming the existing 150 ampere capacity of the unit is not a factor), I'd have him go over absolutely all aluminum connections in any new panel, to make sure ALL aluminum connections are properly wire brushed (to remove the aluminum oxide (which is an insulator), and then have anti-oxidation goop applied to keep the virgin aluminum wire away from the air). Also - have him use a torque wrench on all critical connections - the main service wires and the feed to your Tesla wallbox, are the 2 most critical.

Many electricians simply inadvertently cause heating connections by not tightening connections adequately., although this was not the proximate cause of the bus failure in your case. I have also seen corroded circuit breakers cause excessive heating at the Stab End of the breaker, while remaining cool at the wire connections, but again, these are with decades old rusted breakers.

 

[bwestlak]

Gen 2 HPWC
2016.5 Tesla S P90DL
48 amp charging/60 amp breaker

Video and pic below


So I say HPWC/breaker, because I'm not sure what the problem was. My electrician came and looked at it and couldn't say definitively either. Likely a bad "breaker" so he replaced it(the breaker) and said I will need a new panel.

Since then, I have installed a smoke/carbon monoxide detector, just to be safe. A few times I could smell something burning, same smell as the time it almost caught fire, so I started charging at 30 amps....with a fire extinguisher handy. Side note, hanging out in the garage, I've gotten a lot of cleaning done. Charging at 30 seemed ok, but the breaker still got warm.

Now, a few weeks later, my car stopped charging. Turns out the breaker was getting hot and causing the HPWC to stop charging, but not tripping the 60 amp breaker. Also caused some adjacent breaks to get hot and trip.

So trying to determine my path forward. Replace breaker again? Or is the HPWC bad? If I let the breaker cool down, reset the breaker, and then reset the HPWC, it works but I'm not comfortable using it.

Thoughts?

I didn't see anyone mention this but I might have missed it. My first thought was the HPWC was not strapped for the correct size feed which might allow it to try to draw too much current from the circuit. The breaker should be sized to protect the wire, but sometimes that is not done right which would leave the wire as the weakest link in the circuit. Overheated wires could melt the breaker without tripping it for overcurrent.

Breaker for HPWC was installed at the bottom and you can see how it burnt upward.

View attachment 549080

 

[Bill25cycle]

You don't HAVE to have a bolt-on panel if you buy a quality panel and make sure the breakers are installed/pushed on properly. Personally, I have a Square D QO panel and I'm a fan. It's also nice that local home improvement shops carry a full range of breakers for those panels because I find myself needing something quickly to complete a project. I fully trust a 100A Square D QO breaker/panel because it's really hard to mess that connection up. There's far more possibility for error involving the other connections & wiring than that connection.

I used to like QO decades ago, but lately I'm rather underwhelmed by them....Although claiming they are the "World's Finest", I've had QO panels burn out their aluminum neutral buses (in the particular case the weld mid-bus exploded).

A second problem with the QO is that it is too easy to pull the breaker from the stab, especially with a worn panel, and a heavy hand flipping it 'off' will pull the breaker from the stab..

The third thing I don't like about QO breakers is they seem to produce excessive heat for the current going through them compared to the competition.

 

[GPSBlues]

Gen 2 HPWC
2016.5 Tesla S P90DL
48 amp charging/60 amp breaker

Video and pic below


So I say HPWC/breaker, because I'm not sure what the problem was. My electrician came and looked at it and couldn't say definitively either. Likely a bad "breaker" so he replaced it(the breaker) and said I will need a new panel.

Since then, I have installed a smoke/carbon monoxide detector, just to be safe. A few times I could smell something burning, same smell as the time it almost caught fire, so I started charging at 30 amps....with a fire extinguisher handy. Side note, hanging out in the garage, I've gotten a lot of cleaning done. Charging at 30 seemed ok, but the breaker still got warm.

Now, a few weeks later, my car stopped charging. Turns out the breaker was getting hot and causing the HPWC to stop charging, but not tripping the 60 amp breaker. Also caused some adjacent breaks to get hot and trip.

So trying to determine my path forward. Replace breaker again? Or is the HPWC bad? If I let the breaker cool down, reset the breaker, and then reset the HPWC, it works but I'm not comfortable using it.

Thoughts?



Breaker for HPWC was installed at the bottom and you can see how it burnt upward.

View attachment 549080

Personal experience speaking here.
Ask your utility provider to inspect the incoming lines for proper, quality connections. Examine the wire splices usually present at the weatherhead, and the connections to the buses at the top of the panel, above/before the main breaker. Any connectors' looseness or discoloration observed indicates possible sources for your problems. Connect a voltmeter anywhere in the house and watch it as you turn on heavy loads. The voltage should remain near-constant if your wiring is proper. Other high-load appliances in the house would likely not be as smart/sensitive to voltage drops, and would still function, but a stove, for example, would just be slower and/or cooler (for the same setting) than it should be.