The breaker keeps tripping and no one is touching anything

A breaker that trips once is an event. A breaker that trips daily is a message - and the message is almost never "the breaker is weak," which is what most advice on the street concludes first and fastest, usually because it is the cheapest thing to replace. Work through the causes in test order before buying anything.

Test five minutes first

• One circuit, one appliance. Reset, then use nothing on that circuit. If it holds, add appliances one at a time until it trips: you have just found the fault, and it is the appliance - usually a heating element in an iron, kettle or water heater whose insulation has started leaking to the chassis.
• The trip timing tells the story. Trips the instant you switch on = a short or a dead element. Trips after minutes of running = overload or heat creeping into a loose connection. Trips at random, nothing running = the panel or the wiring itself, and the next two bullets are why you call someone.
• Sniff the panel safely. Open it only by daylight, touch nothing: a warm or fishy smell from breakers or busbar, discoloured plastic, an arc scar on a breaker window - any of these is a loose-connection burn starting, which is the only thing on this list that means stop and call before you read the rest of this page.
• RCD/GFCI outlets or a breaker with a test button? Press the test button: if it does not click open, your earth-leakage protection is decorative - a separate problem, and an important one in a house where the earth rod may have rusted out of the loop years ago.
• Two breakers, one appliance, same trip. The appliance is fine and the circuit is shared or mislabelled - someone extended a ring and never told the panel. Map it honestly and move the load.

What not to accept

The fix that is "a bigger breaker": upsizing the breaker to stop the trips when the wire is the undersized thing is how houses burn politely, months later inside the wall. The wire gauge is the limit, the breaker is the referee - a referee who refuses to send anyone off is not the solution. If the electrician's whole answer is "change the breaker" and the panel is otherwise quiet, get the second opinion this article was researched to justify.

What this desk cannot see for you

Which of the five is yours is a diagnosis of your wiring, your appliances and your panel, made by a competent person with a meter and, for anything inside the wall, a licence. This page is the language to arrive with - and the test list that means you pay for a repair, not a guess.