Electrical breakers in home

[philipp10]

In 4 years of living in my home I have had 3 go bad. 1950 built, assume electrical upgraded about 1980. Does this seem excessive?

 

[Danno]

Risking bad karma.
Been in my house since '92. New Build.
No breaker problems.

 

[Brybo86]

What type of breakers?
I still have some pushmatic from the 1950s.... no problems

 

[Kruse]

It really depends on the brand. A buddy of mine has been an electrician for 30+ years and he can name off some brands of problem breakers, some of them he says need to have the entire box replaced with a modern brand.

 

[55hambone]

There's two ways breakers can go bad. Either they trip too easily or they don't trip at all. Each time a the breaker trips, it weakens the mechanism and it gets to the point where it takes less and less current to trip the breaker. So if you or the previous owner regularly overloaded the circuits to the point of tripping the breakers, that would cause the problem. Federal Pacific breakers have a problem with not tripping at all.

 

[philipp10]

What type of breakers?
I still have some pushmatic from the 1950s.... no problems

GE breakers, typical of what's available at Home Depot.

 

[JHZR2]

How have they gone bad? Nuisance tripping?