Circuit Breakers

Mark Donovan of HomeAdditionPlus.com discusses circuit breakers in home electrical wiring.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Circuit
• Breakers
• Home
• electrical
• wiring
• romex
• wire
• GFCI
• circuit
• breakers
• Ground
• Fault

[steveho75]

What is a ground fault circult breaker?

Steve

[HomeAdditionPlus]

Ground fault circuit breakers, are designed to trip for overload conditions. In addition, ground fault circuit breakers protect people from becoming electrocuted. More specifically, ground fault circuit breakers are designed to sense the slightest loss/change in current draw in the circuit and trip before a dangerous current level could be experienced by a person. Most ground fault circuit breakers today are designed to trip after sensing just a few milliamps of current loss in the circuit.

[steveho75]

If i ran out of space for another circuit breaker box can i put the same kind of circuit breaker box as the other one i have of square d?

Steve

[HomeAdditionPlus]

There are double wide circuit breakers that are the same size as a single wide one. You could double up on a couple of non GFCI circuits to free space to put in a GFCI circuit breaker on another circuit.

[HomeAdditionPlus]

You do not want to simply replace the circuit breaker with a higher rating one. The existing circuit breaker is most likely rated for the guage wire that is used to make the circuit. For example 14-2 wire is used for 15 amp circuit breakers and 12-2 is used for 20am circuit breakers. By just replacing the circuit breaker with a higer amp rating you could cause a fire in your home. You should contact an electrician to determine what type of wire was used in the circuit.

[kemioner]

I Like this guy, He helped me on a few things already. I wish he had a video for exactly what I needed. im probably not looking good enough. oh well enough handy tips. much prefered over any other host ive come accross so far.

[bucktheusa]

@georgeisupset that's interesting considering the old screw in fuses are referred to as "barn burners".

My big gripe is the lack proper seals and strong connections. I can't believe we are still using these old screw connectors in outdoor boxes with exposed wires and metal to metal contacts everywhere.

If we had any sense we'd seal out the elements for protection from corrosion, water, mice, kids etc. My box is a mess in there.

What a joke!

Metal boxes and conduits is just plain nuts!

[Nornamwiley]

George, shutting off electrical source will discontinue the power, but it doesn;t stop the arc heat. You still have that chance of an electrical fire. the point is, fuse boxes are out dated and require replacement. todays power demand on the homes electrical service is 10 time more then when fuse boxes where put on the market!

[shadow540]

That's why they don't make Federal Pacific Breakers anymore.They were the caused so many fire in the 70's because they will NEVER trip.

[georgeisupset]

I still agree w/ fuses, once that small piece of copper burns off , from an overload,you're safe.A breaker has the chance of not tripping,due to manufacturers default, I've seen it.That's how fires start

[lovinasdad]

They are a few options to choose from here the most simple is to get a extenstion lead from another point on a different circuit or another simple way is to unplug everything else on the circuit apart from your comps these dont cost anything to do it proper you need to change the rating of the circuit which means new cable ect.. sorry if spelling mistakes am from england ha

[redsquirrelftw]

yep so many people get this wrong and think they can just go ahead and add a bigger breaker lol... I don't consider myself an expert, I'm actually an IT tech and not an electrician but lot of this stuff is plain common sense.