Overheating breaker termination creates smoke in multi-family dwelling

Location: Shawnigan Lake, BC

Regulated industry sector: Electrical - Low voltage electrical system (30V to 750V)

Incident overview

Tenants of a unit located in a multi-family dwelling lost power. The tenants called an electrician who reset the breaker located in a locked electrical room. When the breaker was reset by the electrician they could smell smoke and could hear a burning noise. The breaker was then immediately turned back off. The cause of this incident was very likely due to overheating of a breaker termination. It is likely this termination was not torqued to the manufacturer’s specifications at the time of installation.