Burnt up neutral wire (causes)???

[mowood3479]

A few weeks back I had a neutral wire burn up (from where it entered the neutral bar n back 2-3 inches..)
120v 20amp circuit.. With mayb 6 Amps in fans and a small Dehuey 5 amps.
I clipped off the burnt section of 12/2 Romex and put the neutral wire into a new spot on the nuetral bar and it's worked fine the last two weeks.
Just wondering why it could've happened in the first place.
I read in another thread it's possibly a faulty breaker?
Should I replace the breaker asap? Not sure what the heck happened.
Any theories would be welcomed.
Thx

 

[mowood3479]

Also this never tripped the breaker... I couldn't figure out what was wrong at first because the circuit was testing that it was live.. But none of the equip on the circuit would work.
Seems strange to me.

 

[HidingInTheHaze]

My guess is a loose connection.

Breakers trip when there is A. an overload or B. a dead short (when hot and neutral, or hot and ground come in contact)

With a loose connection, the wire just arcs, creating heat until it eventually burns up.

 

[theother]

A few weeks back I had a neutral wire burn up (from where it entered the neutral bar n back 2-3 inches..)
120v 20amp circuit.. With mayb 6 Amps in fans and a small Dehuey 5 amps.
I clipped off the burnt section of 12/2 Romex and put the neutral wire into a new spot on the nuetral bar and it's worked fine the last two weeks.
Just wondering why it could've happened in the first place.
I read in another thread it's possibly a faulty breaker?
Should I replace the breaker asap? Not sure what the heck happened.
Any theories would be welcomed.
Thx

Pm rives and out him to the thread, that's probably your best bet.

 

[nukklehead]

My guess is a loose connection.

Breakers trip when there is A. an overload or B. a dead short (when hot and neutral, or hot and ground come in contact)

With a loose connection, the wire just arcs, creating heat until it eventually burns up.

Im no rives but haze nailed it.. have had loose wires before.. same thing..

 

[rives]

Yep, Haze is correct on all counts. As he said, standard breakers are only good for sustained overloads or direct shorts, a GFCI adds the function of sensing low level faults to ground and AFCI's add arc protection. A loose connection should have been picked up by an AFCI, but the other breakers will happily ignore it.

 

[mowood3479]

Thx guys,
That helps me sleep a bit better.
Thank you