1 Year old Kenmore Stove, Flat Top keeps tripping my 50 AMP circuit breaker. This stove has worked without problem for 1 year without any problems. What confuses me is that the circuit breaker is tripped whether I use the range, the oven, or both at the same time. Could the breaker be bad? To temporarily fix the problem I have to move the lever of the breaker to completely off for less than a minute and then turn it back on. I called sears repair and of course this is now 1 week out of warranty but they did say they thought it was something wrong with the stove itself. They verified that a 50 AMP circuit should be sufficient. I unscrewed all of the back sheet panels off the stove but nothing looks out of the ordinary from my novice perspective. What could possibly be tripping the circuit? Is their a part or two I can narrow down to be the culprit? Could the circuit be bad, it came with the house. Before the circuit is tripped I do not see anything unusual about the stoves operation, it just shuts off due to the circuit breaker being tripped.

Thanks for your comments so far, The stove worked fine last night to bake up some rolls but today tripped the circuit in just the preheating stage when I went to bake some cookies. Following some of this advice I reseated the circuit breaker and reset it. The stove finished the cookies without problem. If it trips again I will follow the below advice of trying a different circuit altogether and then later comments after that.

Yes the breaker can be defective. Breakers normally trip for two reasons, either a short circuit or and overload. I am sure the issue is not overload.

There may be a short circuit in the range, or the feeder cable to the range , or the breaker may be defective.

If the breaker stays on with the range unplugged, then the cable should be fine. If the breaker trips once you plug in the range, then there is a short in the range. If the range works for a while then the CB trips, then the CB may be bad, or there is a loose connection on the CB that is causing heat that is tripping the CB.

50 A seems like a lot for this stove. I've seen them operate on dedicated 30A circuits. Did you have other problems before with this circuit? Can you operate the stove tops elements without tripping the breaker? Due to age I would suspect the breaker as being weak or the bottom half of the stove (broil and bake elements) .Check behind the control panel and look at the control switches for the oven to see if there is any burned parts.

If the range is only 1 year old, then I would make sure that whoever put the cord on did it correctly. By "correctly" I mean that all 3 or 4 cord wire connections are tight and none are corroding or burning off. Second, a 50 amp circuit breaker tells me that we should probably make sure that the range is in fact on a dedicated circuit. Many times I have found a 50 amp breaker supplying power to both an oven and a cooktop or something else. This should not be done, and it's likely that no one knows who and what someone may have done to the wiring over the years. A standard 30 inch range should be able to function on a 40 amp breaker. Look at the model/serial tag to find the full load amps of the range and if you replace the breaker, use one that is just above this rating. I would look for anything else that doesn't work when the breaker is off. Maybe you could literally follow the wires from the range to the breaker box to ensure there are no other connections. You could also inspect the prongs on the cord; they should not have any discoloration/corrosion; the problem is just as likely to be in the receptacle as anywhere else. The only way to ascertain if it's the range or the breaker without spending unnecessary money is to use an amp probe to monitor amp draw so you know exactly how much current the range is using when the breaker trips. Good luck.