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MatthewP

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USA member here, new to the forum.
I have limited electrical knowledge, my dad was a licensed electrician and showed me a few things. Over the years as a tradesman and owning a couple homes I’ve learned a bit.
On to the question at hand..
We’ve owned our house (built approx 1975) for 3 years. About a year ago we noticed a few outlets and a ceiling fan stopped working. Troubleshooting took me to the breaker and after replacing the breaker all was good again. Two weeks ago the same outlets and fan weren’t working, replaced the breaker and all was good. Today we realized that line is down again. Any thoughts before I call in a professional after the holiday?
 
A good test would be to isolate the main power (securely, and test that it is isolates) then test using an ohmmeter for continuity from busbar to breaker, breaker to wire, and wire to outlets to find the disconnection, without physically removing or disturbing anything that might temporaily conceal an intermittent fault. If the circuit is wired with aluminum cable, intermittent connections are more likely.

Possibilities include:
*Bad contact inside the panel (e.g from breaker to busbar maybe because the contact lug is damaged) or to the cable itself either hot or neutral. This would have been disturbed when you previously changed the breaker, making you think that the breaker was faulty when in fact it was just the connection.
*Bad connection at or before first affected point on circuit. Does not explain how it made contact again immediately after changing breaker, twice.
* Multiple faulty breakers; very unlikely, unless they have all been constantly overloaded (does it ever trip? Are there heavy loads on those outlets?)

Bad connection in the panel seems most likely, especially to the busbar. Look carefully for signs of arcing or pitting.Are there vacant positions in the panel that you could move the breaker to? What brand and model of panel is it?
 
USA member here, new to the forum.
I have limited electrical knowledge, my dad was a licensed electrician and showed me a few things. Over the years as a tradesman and owning a couple homes I’ve learned a bit.
On to the question at hand..
We’ve owned our house (built approx 1975) for 3 years. About a year ago we noticed a few outlets and a ceiling fan stopped working. Troubleshooting took me to the breaker and after replacing the breaker all was good again. Two weeks ago the same outlets and fan weren’t working, replaced the breaker and all was good. Today we realized that line is down again. Any thoughts before I call in a professional after the holiday?
Matthew welcome to the forum. That is very odd that many breakers go out like that. Are you sure that nothing is wrong in the outlets or ceiling fan. Breakers just don’t quit working like your situation and are you installing the right breaker for your panel. Look inside the panel on the cover it should have recommended breakers for your panel and I’m assuming that the breaker is AFCI or a regular breaker.
 
My first thought on this is as Lucien has said, a poor connection at the breaker which is temporarily made better by replacing the breaker.
My guess would be the part of busbar which the breaker connects to is dirty or corroded and making a poor connection which gets worse with time.
 

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