Diagnosing a Faulty Breaker with ChatGPT

January 19, 2026

Let me start with a disclaimer. This is not a how-to guide on how to replace a breaker. Working on breakers, live wires, and electrical panels can be extremely dangerous. If you are not confident in your handyman abilities, the money spent on an electrician will be well worth it. With that out of the way, let us move on to my situation.

My wife and I bought our house in June of 2026. Shortly after moving, we noticed that the dishwasher was not completing its cycles, leaving an unwanted residue on the dishes from the soap that hadn't been fully rinsed off. We actually didn't know that the dishwasher wasn't completing its cycles at first. We saw that it was not running, felt some steam coming out from the vent, and simply assumed it was done. On top of that, we were using a different soap. "Hmmm, maybe it's just the soap." we thought. But that was debunked quickly when we would go and run the dishwasher again, notice nothing happening, and then see that the breaker had tripped.

Great. We just moved into a new house, and now we have to shell out $500-1000 for a new dishwasher. Since there were so many things to do while getting settled in, we (read: I) decided to blissfully ignore the issue and simply walk downstairs every so often and turn the breaker back on. I am not an electrician, but you probably don't want to ignore this as long as I did. Clearly, something isn't working the way it is supposed to, which can lead to bigger problems.

The weird thing was that it actually stopped happening as frequently. A few weeks went by at a time before it would get tripped again. At this point, I have been naively assuming that it is just an issue with a dishwasher, so I let it continue because I am pretty cheap and didn't want to buy a new dishwasher. But all good things must come to an end, and the issue started happening more frequently. Not just when we would run the dishwasher, but every few hours, I would notice that the breaker was switched (the only other thing on this breaker is the garbage disposal, which I would run to test if the breaker was triggered). Fine, I will stop procrastinating and get this figured out.

I have done my fair share of home remodeling. I have done electrical (replaced outlets, switches, and lights), plumbing (shower and sink faucets, garbage disposal replacement), flooring, cabinet, countertop installation and more. You name it, I have likely done it or am confident I can learn how to do it. However, one thing I have not touched is an electrical panel. Whenever I do electrical work, I usually just turn off the main and be done with it. That is the extent of my electrical panel knowledge.

Even though I suspected the issue was with my dishwasher pulling too much power and tripping the breaker, replacing it felt like an expensive way to test that suspicion. Enter ChatGPT. Throughout a back-and-forth dialogue, I described the problem, shared details about what was connected to the breaker, and that it was an AFCI/GFCI dual-purpose breaker. Throughout the conversation, I was guided through a variety of checks to isolate the problem so that I could actually fix the issue.

It was quite a blow to my ego when the first thing I was prompted to do was to unplug the dishwasher and see if the issue continued. So I did that, and it still tripped. What a relief! I don't have to go buy a new dishwasher. Next, I unplugged the garbage disposal and reached the same result. My hunch is starting to be that the issue is the breaker. At least I hoped that was the case because if there was an issue somewhere in the walls, I would definitely be calling an electrician, and that would get pricey. One last thing to check was to make sure that the outlet didn't have any noticeable issues. I turned the power off, pulled it out, and inspected it for any signs of corrosion or water damage. From what I could tell, everything looked normal.

At this point, it is either an issue with the breaker or somewhere in the walls. I was confident I could do this electrical work because I knew that it was pretty straightforward. I wasn't adding anything new; I was simply going to be removing the wires from the existing breaker, taking it out, reconnecting the wires to the new breaker, and finally inserting the breaker back into the panel. But how do I know what breaker to get?

From earlier research, I knew I needed to get the same one that I have. After consulting with my assistant, they gave me a list of things to verify. First, I had to figure out if my panel was BR or CH. I didn't really know the difference, but when I looked into it, it appears that it is just two different lines of products that Eaton offers, with the CH line being the more premium in parts vs. the BR line being more economical. Not surprisingly, my new build (2017) home has the economical version! But had I not been prompted to check for this one, I also wouldn't have known that the two are not interchangeable. I was able to learn which line to use from the sticker on my panel.

The next thing I had to match was the amperage. This was easier to see as the number 20 was on the switch. The last thing I needed to check was that the breaker was also dual-rated for AFCI/GFCI. These are easy to find in the store because, unlike regular breakers packed in boxes, these were hanging with anti-theft devices on them due to the ~$60 price difference ($70 compared to $10 for the regular breaker).

Being in tech, I skeptically listen to LLMs. I understand they are probabilistic and that they have many limitations. It is actually pretty easy to recognize ("You are absolutely correct, that the solution is wrong!" - ChatGPT when I say that the code it provided didn't work). With that in mind, I didn't use ChatGPT to tell me how to actually change the breaker. Instead, I relied on good 'ol YouTube University.

I swapped out the breaker and let it sit for a few hours before plugging anything in. All seemed well, so I plugged the dishwasher in and ran a cycle. A complete cycle ran, incredible! Lastly, I plugged in the disposal, and things still seem to be operating as expected.

In the past, I would have iteratively googled and likely would have gotten to the same result. But that approach can be quite frustrating as I have to piece together different bits of information and try and form a coherent story and path forward. This is where I find LLMs to be most valuable. I can provide information specific to my situation and work through the problem. "AI" didn't magically complete this task for me, but it did help me solve the problem quicker and more confidently.