Having a general knowledge of all the systems in your home is very useful. You can prevent problems from occurring, simply by having knowledge of how the system works. Here we are going to give a brief discussion about the basic electrical system in its simplest form to provide a general working knowledge for our customers. Do not use this understated explanation to self diagnose problems, this information is for our customers to have an understanding and working knowledge so that when you are advised of what your problems are you can knowledgably understand them which will help to prevent them from occurring in the future.
Every home has a power supply coming from the power company. This is called your electrical service. The electrical service enters through the house and connects to your main panel. In your main panel you have branch circuits; each of these circuits controls one or more items in your home. From the main panel wires run throughout you house connecting to these branch circuits, items such as lights, appliances, outlets, ceiling fans, and other items that require electricity to operate. However first you need to understand that each branch circuit consists of three wires a hot, neutral and ground. When you turn on your light electricity is ran through the hot and neutral wires from the branch circuits to the light, this is what makes the light turn on. When electricity flows into these wires they cause the wires to heat up. The size of the wire and the amount of items on that particular circuit are determining factors in keeping the wire from getting to hot and starting a fire. The circuits in your panel are actually safety devices which primarily function is to turn off the items connected to it, when it senses a problem. Circuits are designed to sense when a wire is too hot or there is too much draw (amount of electricity need to operate items). When it senses this happening it “trips” or turns itself off, cutting of the electricity to those items and thus preventing a fire.
It is important to understand that if you are constantly tripping breakers while using items in your home, chances are you need to add circuits or break up that amount that is on a particular circuit. Not only will this decrease your annoyance of constantly resetting the circuit breakers but your electrical system will be more stable and safe.
Now there are some items such as appliances, air conditioning units, heaters, and GFI outlets that need to be on what’s called a dedicated circuit. Simply put, this means nothing else is on the circuit besides that one item. This again is for safety purposes.
Things to Be Aware Of…
- If you are experiencing frequent tripping of breakers, contact an electrician to diagnose and correct the problem.
- If you are using an extension cords and plug adapters to plug in multiple appliances into the same outlet should not be done, call a qualified electrician to install additional outlets.
- On the same note, do not run extension cords under carpet or flooring, they are designed to be kept under covered so they can cool by the movement of air in the room.
- In any outlet or wall switch is hot to the touch, have a qualified electrician diagnose and fix the problem.
- Look and listen for problem in your home, if you hear buzzing or crackling, if you have hot to touch outlets or switches, do not ignore these issues, what may be a simple problem and can be repairs inexpensively could turn into a huge problem, resulting in a potential fire.
- Circuits can only handle a specified total wattage of all electrical devices plugged into and running on a branch circuit at one time.
As a general guide you can use the following
- 15 amp can carry 1500 watts
- 20 amp can carry 2000 watts
- Examples, a hair dryer can draw 1400 watts, an iron 1000 watts, a portable heater 1200 watts, vacuum cleaner 600 watts.
