Double Pole Circuit Breaker

Hi guys,

I have some baseboard heaters attached to a 240V double pole circuit breaker. Last night, I noticed that they no longer were turning on. I opened the panel expecting the breaker to be tripped, but it is still on. However, when I test it using the multimeter, I am only getting 120 across one wire. The other wire is showing 0 and when I cross the legs, I also get 0.

Is it possible that the breaker is going bad and the 1 wire is tripped even though the breaker appears fine from the outside?

The heaters had been working and I confirmed that the thermostat is still working correctly.

Thanks for your help.

 

Tried turning it all the way off and back on again?
Pulled the breaker out to see if there's a burned or corroded Buss bar?
Checked for a loose connection?

 

Breakers do go bad. But do as joecaption suggested. If turning off breaker and resetting it doesn't fix it then the odds are the breaker has failed.

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

I made sure the thermostat was off and I flipped the circuit breaker to off and then back on. Once I did this, I had 120v back at each leg and 240v back across. However, I went and turned the thermostat on and nothing happened with the heaters. So back to the panel and the 1 leg (white) was coming up at 0v again. Black line always stays 120v. So I flipped off and on a 2nd time and 240v back again. This time the heaters came on when I turned the thermostat back on.

I assume it will likely go out again though. I am leaning strongly that a new breaker will fix the problem. I will let you guys know if a new breaker fixes the issue once and for all.

 

Buying a new breaker is a cheap test. If the new one does the same you can always return it and get your money back.

 

Turned out it was the breaker. I didnt even need to go out and buy one. With the home renovations we are doing, we had killed 2 lines running into the panel so I just switched the baseboards over to an unused breaker in the box and all is working correctly again.

Thanks for your help guys!

 

Thanks for letting us know the solution.