We have owned our Caldera Utopia Geneva for two years, and the previous owners put the spa in three years before - in 2004. The spa has been working fine until recently. In the past couple months, I would find the 30A GFCI breaker tripped. Thinking we might have had power outages (common here) or some other glitch, I was able to reset both 20A and 30A breakers and resume operation.
That was then. A couple weeks ago, the 30A circuit started immediately tripping upon reset. In all my messing around, I figured I fried that breaker, so I bought and installed a new one. That seemed to work OK; power came on, the temperature was coming up. When I hit the CLEAN button, it tripped the 30A breaker. Again, I did a reset - this time leaving things alone. Temperature came up to 98; but next morning the 30A breaker again is tripped.
Now, the new breaker is exhibiting the same behavior as the first one - immediate trip on re-set.
I've looked at the sub-panel, and it is wired per Caldera's specifications. (I wonder about the usefulness of a 20A GFI that does not use either neutral or ground to the load... but that's not the breaker in question.)
We do live in a humid area, near the ocean. The spa is protected in a solarium room with no water leaks.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to troubleshoot this? I've taken a look inside the spa control box, and don't see anything obvious, nor do I smell any toasted electronics. The closest dealer is 150 miles away. I've done a lot of DIY in the past, so am willing to roll up my sleeves on this if anyone has any suggestions...
Thanks in advance!