GFI Breaker

Hello All, Please forgive me if my post is outside of the scope of this group, but I'm not sure where to turn. I have a fairly new house (3 years old) and I am experiencing a strange problem. For about a year, the GFCI breaker that protects the receptacles in my bedroom (why it is a GFCI breaker, I do not know) has been tripping occasionally and I could not determine the cause. In the last two weeks it has become apparent that the bedroom breaker trips when I use the microwave in the kitchen!! It has become so bad that even using the microwave for seconds will trip the bedroom breaker. The truly bizarre part is the microwave is on a completely different circuit. In fact the microwave is on its own circuit altogether. Does anyone have any idea why this could be happening? Thanks very much to anyone who can help.

Are you sure that the bedroom circuit breaker is a GFCI breaker? More likely, is an arc fault breaker (AFCI).

These trip based on the high frequency current components produced by an arcing fault and are required by code for circuits feeding bedrooms. Since they are sensitive to HF currents, its possible that the interference produced by a microwave could cause an AFCI to trip, particularly if it is one of the earlier units produced. Try having a new AFCI breaker installed. While the electrician is digging around in the panel, have him make sure all ground and neutral connections are properly tightened in there. If this doesn't fix things, try moving the AFCI onto the 120V leg opposite the microwave circuit.

But first, make sure you don't just have a crappy microwave (that's probably the cheapest thing to fix).