All branch circuits in the panel will now be shut off.Ĭareful electricians always stand to the side of the service panel when turning a circuit breaker on or off, and they turn their eyes away from the panel until the transition is made. This may now put you in the dark, so make sure you have a flashlight handy, if necessary. Locate the main circuit breaker and flip it to the OFF position. Professional electricians sometimes replace individual circuit breakers without shutting the main power supply off, but for an amateur doing this work, it is best to shut off the entire power supply, which interrupts the power to the two hot bus bars running down through the service panel. The Spruce Home Improvement Review Board.When it gets cold I put on an additional non-electric blanket, long thermal underwear, a hat and scarf, and let the dog sleep on the bed with me.ĭuring the winter you might want to become a "snow bird" and fly south to Florida instead of having to deal with electricity, aka "Organized Lighting" according to George Carlin. Have a licensed and insured electrician (Journeyman or Master) or electrical contractor add a new 20 amp circuit, or replace the existing 14 AWG cabling with 12 AWG cabling, or use your hair dryer in the bathroom which should already have a GFCI per NEC 210.8(A)1) and 20 amp receptacle per NEC 210.11(C)3) installed within three feet of the edge of a basin per NEC Article 200, Section III Required Outlets, 210.52 Dwelling Unit Receptacle Outlets, (D) Bathroom. The excess heat in the wire and inside your wall causes the insulation to fail over time, creating a potential short circuit accompanied by sparks that ignite flammables. When you draw too much current through a skinny wire, since its not a superconductor, you're converting electrical energy into heat energy from Ohm's resistive loss, resulting in less electrical energy (a voltage drop) reaching your load (appliance, light bulb, stereo. And Power loss = current squared (i to the twoth power) times resistance (R). Voltage loss (V) = current (i amps) times resistance (r ohms). 12 AWG NM-B sheathing is colored yellow.ġ0 AWG with orange sheathing would be even better electrically, but more expensive and not required by "code", the NEC.īlame all this mumbo jumbo on Physics and a German named Georg Simon Ohm who created a Law that even Donald J. 14AWG has a smaller diameter than 10AWG because it was stretched more.ġ5 amp rated circuit breakers use 14 AWG current carrying conductors (black hot & white neutral) + a green ground wire which normally carries no current in industry standard outer white non-metallic sheathed cable called NM-B 90 degree Centigrade rated "Romex".Ģ0 amp rated circuit breakers use the same configuration but 12 AWG, which is a larger diameter wire than 14 AWG, and therefor has less resistance for the same distance/footage from the load center/panelboard circuit breakers. This is why American Wire Gauge (AWG) seems backwards, i.e. The more times its stretched the smaller it gets. Wire is made smaller when manufactured by drawing/stretching it. Swapping out a 20 amp breaker for the 15 amp breaker will violate NEC 210.19(A)(1) and provide cause for your insurance company not to reimburse your losses from fire & smoke damage and the water damage from the fire department flooding your house. Lights dimming and CBs popping is a sure sign your house was not built to handle heating blankets and hair dryers in the bedroom. National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) Standard Number 70, National Electric Code (NEC), adopted by most states (exceptions are Missouri, Mississippi and Arizona), requires the branch circuit Over Current Protection Device (OCPD -typically a circuit breaker (CB) nowadays, rather than a fuse from days of yore) to protect the cable/wiring buried in your walls from overheating by de-energizing (shut off/open circuit) all outlets (lighting & receptacles) for that circuit by tripping/blowing.
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