Question for an electrician - HELP! [Archive]

Drat

02-09-2010, 05:26 PM

I haven't been around here much lately, but I have a good reason...

We bought a house. An old house. A 90 year old house...

I've been spending every last minute of my waking time on this place with very little time for the simple pleasures in life (beer and cigars).

I'm a pretty handy person, but when it comes to electricity, I'm riding the short-bus.

So on to my question:

We've been tripping two of the breakers very often. One seems to control all of the 2nd floor and attic room along with the bathroom and laundry room. The other seems to control all of the outlets along one wall, which is where our toaster over and microwave are. I've figured out what all all of the breakers go to except 2. So we might have 2 open, but I doubt it (will probably do some testing this weekend). We've been running electric heaters due to insufficient insulation (another project I'm working on) and hate having to go the the basement crawl space to reset the breaker.

Anyway, what are the options for cheaply fixing our issue of having too many outlets connected through one breaker?

Starz26

02-09-2010, 05:34 PM

Sounds like your amps are too much for the breaker...A couple of things you need to find out:

1. do you have modern circuit breakers or fuses. If the latter I cannot help
2. do you have a 100 amp or 200 amp circuit breaker
3. Add up all your breakers and make sure they do not go over the total amps for your service.
4. If you have free breakers, move a few of the items to those breakers.
5. If you do not have, try to balance out the load a little..
6. Balance by taking high amp items (toaster over, microwave) and splitting them onto breakers that do not have as much of a load. Keeping in mind that a 10 amp breaker cannot take as much as a 20 amp (I know duh)

If you only have a 100 amp service, consider upgrading to a 200 amp service. can be done on your own for what 1000-2000 including all materials? Someone may have a better cost estimate.

Hope this helps
I haven't been around here much lately, but I have a good reason...

We bought a house. An old house. A 90 year old house...

I've been spending every last minute of my waking time on this place with very little time for the simple pleasures in life (beer and cigars).

I'm a pretty handy person, but when it comes to electricity, I'm riding the short-bus.

So on to my question:

We've been tripping two of the breakers very often. One seems to control all of the 2nd floor and attic room along with the bathroom and laundry room. The other seems to control all of the outlets along one wall, which is where our toaster over and microwave are. I've figured out what all all of the breakers go to except 2. So we might have 2 open, but I doubt it (will probably do some testing this weekend). We've been running electric heaters due to insufficient insulation (another project I'm working on) and hate having to go the the basement crawl space to reset the breaker.

Anyway, what are the options for cheaply fixing our issue of having too many outlets connected through one breaker?

Drat

02-09-2010, 06:10 PM

Thanks for the quick reply. I did my best to address a few of the points you made below:

Sounds like your amps are too much for the breaker...A couple of things you need to find out:

1. do you have modern circuit breakers or fuses. breakers
2. do you have a 100 amp or 200 amp circuit breaker 200
3. Add up all your breakers and make sure they do not go over the total amps for your service. gah? there are 5 breakers on the right side of the box that range from BR130-BR115. There's the main that looks like it says BR2000. We have a 220v outlet for an air conditioner that has it's own breaker and some others that I couldn't see well for the boiler and the outside lights etc.
4. If you have free breakers, move a few of the items to those breakers. I wouldn't know the first step in doing this, but would this be an easy thing for somebody who does?
5. If you do not have, try to balance out the load a little..once again, not anywhere near my level of understanding. Is it easy to tell what outlet goes to what wire?
6. Balance by taking high amp items (toaster over, microwave) and splitting them onto breakers that do not have as much of a load. Keeping in mind that a 10 amp breaker cannot take as much as a 20 amp (I know duh)

If you only have a 100 amp service, consider upgrading to a 200 amp service. can be done on your own for what 1000-2000 including all materials? Someone may have a better cost estimate.

Hope this helps

Starz26

02-09-2010, 09:52 PM

Thanks for the quick reply. I did my best to address a few of the points you made below:

Originally Posted by Starz26 View Post
Sounds like your amps are too much for the breaker...A couple of things you need to find out:

there are 5 breakers on the right side of the box that range from BR130-BR115. There's the main that looks like it says BR2000.

the BR 115 is a 15 amp breaker, the Br130 is a 30 amp breaker. The 30 amp is good for items that draw a lot of current like microwaves, heaters, toaster ovens. It will depend on what the items uses for amperage as to how many you can put on that breaker. The 15 am should be for outlets and lower amp stuff that plugs into them. Typically this is not needed but you are having issues with breakers tripping so they are becoming overloaded and you need to find it you can manage what you have better

The balance comes from mapping what goes to each breaker, determining what amperage each item uses (internet search or owners manual) and arranging them so they are all placed to utilize the available amperage without overloading them.

The Br2000 - I could not find any information, could it be a BR 2020 (twin pole 20 amp 120/240v)

We have a 220v outlet for an air conditioner that has it's own breaker and some others that I couldn't see well for the boiler and the outside lights etc.
4. If you have free breakers, move a few of the items to those breakers. I wouldn't know the first step in doing this, but would this be an easy thing for somebody who does?

very easy, once the wires are identified, unscrew them from the breaker and move them to the other breaker. You can shut off one of the mains if you feel uncomfortable doing this while it is energized.

5. If you do not have, try to balance out the load a little..once again, not anywhere near my level of understanding. Is it easy to tell what outlet goes to what wire?

They sell equipment (cheap) that you can plug into the outlet and then it will emit a signal that you can trace at the breaker box. Or you can pop the breaker off and see what does not run any more. If more than one item on that breaker, replace one at a time, turn on the breaker, lable the wires, and repeat until you know what they all are.

also try reading this and see if it helps at all...http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/circuit-breaker.htm

Drat

02-10-2010, 05:57 AM

Thank you so much! I'm going to open the box up this weekend and poke around. I hope it's 1/4 as easy as you make it sound.

shilala

02-10-2010, 06:37 AM

Thank you so much! I'm going to open the box up this weekend and poke around. I hope it's 1/4 as easy as you make it sound.
It really is super easy.
That said, don't mess with it. Take pics and have the guys look at it.
On top of load, you have to consider wire weight, or the type/size of wire pulled throughout the house. For some reason, nowadays they pull 14 and 16 guage wire in houses, or have in the past. Why anyone would do that is beyond me, because it saves about 5 bucks on a job, but it happens.
Odds are that your overloaded circuit is tripping because of wire size and not overload at the breaker.
The best way to take care of it is to move the heaters off that circuit with the microwave and heavy load stuff.
I wired this whole house when I remodeled it about 10 years ago. I pulled 12 wire everywhere. Despite that, I overload this circuit where my computer, fish tank, microwave and a million other things are. I put the dining room on the same circuit as the kitchen because I have an old breaker box with discontinued super expensive breakers.
It was a good idea until I moved in here and plugged the whole world into one circuit. :)
Just blew the breaker yesterday while I was warming my coffee in the microwave and had a space heater plugged in at my desk. The space heater is just one appliance too much.
Your other (maybe not so) obvious option is to unplug the microwave. That way you'll know to turn off the heater before you use it, and no more crawling under the house. :tu

Starz26

02-10-2010, 09:52 AM

Scott knows what he is talking about.....forgot all about the type of wire........

CigarNut

02-10-2010, 10:03 AM

As Scott has indicated this is certainly something that you can do, especially with the help of some BOTLs. Having said that, electricity can really F--- you over, so you might want to have an electrician come out and give you an estimate.

They have all of the tools and skills to make short work of your problem -- they see this kind of thing all the time.

rack04

02-10-2010, 10:24 AM

Before you do any work research and abide by your local building codes.

For example:

Chapter 56 Dallas Electrical Code

The 2008 National Electrical Code is amended by adding a new Article 81, entitled "General Provisions," to read as follows:

81.3 Performance of Electrical Work by Homeowner.

(A) Electrical Work on Homestead Premises. A homeowner may personally install electrical conductors or equipment on homestead premises owned and occupied by the owner if the owner files approved plans and specifications with the chief electrical code administrator, satisfies the chief electrical code administrator or the assigned electrical inspector, as to the owner's ability to install electrical wiring by passing an approved written or oral examination, applies for and secures a permit where required, pays required fees, and does work in accordance with this Code and the provisions of Chapter 52 of the Dallas City Code.

AD720

02-10-2010, 10:31 AM

Before you do any work research and abide by your local building codes.

:tpd:

You do something wrong and there is a problem down the road, god forbid, your home owners insurance could decline the claim if everything isn't up to code.

Anything more than rewiring an outlet or a switch I call a pro.

Rabidsquirrel

02-10-2010, 10:35 AM

Don't forget, even if you turn the main off, you'll still have hot wires in the panel. You really shouldn't mess with electricity if you don't have an idea of what you're doing.

How many space heaters are you running on the second floor?

Since it sounds like your house has been rewired, you should have at least two small appliance circuits in the kitchen.

Prospector

02-10-2010, 10:54 AM

Balancing loads is not nearly as simple as it sounds when you consider that most, if not all, of your circuits are likely daisy-chained from a single wire coming off of each breaker. As such balancing loads will require fishing new wires through the walls, tearing out walls, and other messy stuff.

shilala

02-10-2010, 11:04 AM

Prospector

02-10-2010, 11:30 AM

:tpd:
I just unplugged my heater. Problem solved. :)

Of course there is always the less-than-elegant approach of balancing loads using extension cords:D

shilala

02-10-2010, 11:41 AM

Of course there is always the less-than-elegant approach of balancing loads using extension cords:D
Or burning the house down...
;)

Prospector

02-10-2010, 12:00 PM

Or burning the house down...
;)

This is true, it's only as safe as you make it. I have at times made my own extension cords out of #12 Romex:)

shilala

02-10-2010, 12:02 PM

This is true, it's only as safe as you make it. I have at times made my own extension cords out of #12 Romex:)
I didn't think the methodology was crude at all, brother. It works great. Saves grief, too.
I was suggesting that burning the house down might just be easier. :tu

Prospector

02-10-2010, 12:54 PM

I didn't think the methodology was crude at all, brother. It works great. Saves grief, too.
I was suggesting that burning the house down might just be easier. :tu

I didn't think of that, but it certainly does solve the wiring problems.:tu

BigFrank

02-10-2010, 04:26 PM

Unless you have a clue as to what you are doing call a licensed Electrician. Check around, check the BBB etc.
No need to become a statistic.

Drat

02-10-2010, 05:32 PM

Thanks guys. I'm pretty sure that in this house it is anything but easy to figure out what the hell is going on. The kitchen is actually an addition built some 20 years after the house, and certainly wasn't built to code (the 5 inch sloping floors are the first clue).

There are very few outlets in the house. Based upon that I was thinking that it could be pretty straight forward, but it seems that the two breakers that overload control just about everything we have plugged in. The microwave/toaster aren't on the same breaker as the heaters. My computer, tv, video games, etc are on that one.

The heaters all seem to be on the same one though. We have two small and two large heaters (don't remember their amperage, but they do the job). We try not to have more than 2 on at any given time, but if two are on, and then the refrigerator cycles or something, we trip the breaker. Ideally I'd want to rewire the house with a larger box to spread them out more, but I don't have the couple of thousand dollars to do that, let alone the time and $$ to redo most of the interior walls.

I wish there were a quick/cheap solution, but alas, there never seems to be.

Thanks for all the help guys!

shilala

02-10-2010, 05:41 PM

Brian, if your breaker box is in the crawl space, and you have empty spaces for breakers, it doesn't get any easier than running some romex and setting some surface mount outlets on a dedicated circuit.
That would take the load off and wouldn't cost but a couple bucks for material.
I wish I was closer, we could knock it out in no time.
Even if you hired a guy to do it, it's not a big job at all. It'll take longer to drag tools back in the crawl space than to get it done. Literally.
Have someone take a look at what you need done. Tell him you want a dedicated circuit and some easy to place surface mount outlets. Just a couple would help. Three would really take the load off.
If you got really fancy, you could set a couple circuits worth of outlets and never have a problem again.
Mind ya, I'm imagining a ranch style with the breaker box in the crawl space. Even if it's two story, breakers on the floor above the crawl space would help, I'd think.
It really depends on the layout of the house and the extent of the crawl space. :tu

Hitagain

02-11-2010, 06:38 PM

3. Add up all your breakers and make sure they do not go over the total amps for your service.

If you have a 42 circuit 200 amp panel, you could install 42 20 amp breakers if you want. This is because most circuits are not continuous loads.
Breakers are sized to protect the wire. Wire is sized to serve the load.

DO NOT PUT A 30 BREAKER TO FEED 15/20 AMP OUTLET.

beamish

02-12-2010, 02:57 PM

If you have a 42 circuit 200 amp panel, you could install 42 20 amp breakers if you want. This is because most circuits are not continuous loads.
Breakers are sized to protect the wire. Wire is sized to serve the load.

DO NOT PUT A 30 BREAKER TO FEED 15/20 AMP OUTLET.

what he said...more than likely you need to run additional circiuts to split the loads..the size of the service doesnt really matter if you have 100a you can always add a sub panel 100 amps you are allowed 24 poles [circuit breakers] however they do now make 30 circuit 100 amp panels,when your house was built, it was not wired to accept all the load demands of today , especially plugging in heaters, like mentioned before breakers size is directly related to the size of the wire #12 wire is rated for more than 20 amps but a 20 amp breaker is all the code allows etc...placing a larger breaker in place to solve the tripping problem is a sure fired way to a fire ....the problem is probably due to internal house wiring problems ,[to many things plugged into said circuits..the only way to fix this problem is to run new circuits to the affected areas and split up the loads ..hit the laundry with a 20 amp circuit
the idea is to get the heavy hitting appliances on their own,,micro,,coffee..laundry...etc...the original circuit is probably fine for general items like tv,,lamps stereo..etc.....for now dont run to many things at once...hope this helps...

cf2112

02-13-2010, 09:11 AM

Some seriously bad advise given here (a few with good advise). Hire an Electrician and pay him to do the work or you could burn your house down and/or die. I've been an electrician for 25 years and have seen homeowners fu** up more wiring than you can imagine. We are currently rewiring a house that burned because they doubled/tripled up circuits on oversized breakers. Wire size determines breaker size. Why risk your families safety getting advise from cigar smokers or off the internet.

Do your own plumbing get wet, do your own electrical you can die.

If your breaker box is a Federal Pacific or Zinsco GET IT CHANGED NOW, google Federal Pacific or Zinsco breaker to see what I mean. This should run $1500-2500.
http://www.inspectapedia.com/fpe/fpepanel.htm
http://www.inspectapedia.com/electric/Zinsco.htm

BORIStheBLADE

02-13-2010, 09:40 AM

You can get some really good ideas on the internet from people about your options and how to go about them, but the reality is the potential for you to get hurt or killed is pretty high given your knowledge of electrical.

Me personally.... if you don't know anyone that is an electrician I would hire a local electrician to come buy and spend an hour or two investigating your options and whats going on.

He will know how to open the panel and close it up. It sounds simple, but if the past owner hired a shotty electrician he could have created a hazard behind the panel cover and done something to get by which in reality you wouldn't know whats up or how to react to it.

I've been an electrician for 12 years so thats my :2

Starz26

02-13-2010, 10:09 AM

Some seriously bad advise given here

I resemble that remark......

Thank for all the good information posted here...I learned a lot...

cf2112

02-13-2010, 10:46 AM

No offense meant to anyone. Somethings are best left to those who are trained in the field you need. Safety should always trump cost.

I own rental properties and can do alot of different repairs but almost always hire a certified contractor. I know it costs more but the safety of my family and the families I rent homes to is more important than saving a few $$. I hire my own company to do any electrical on my rentals and rarely work on them myself, mainly for liability and the inspection that goes with it.

A good friend just installed his own water heater in a rental he owns, it leaked causing some major damage. His insurance is pitching a fit and refusing to pay for lost rent since he did the work himself and did not get it inspected. You are allowed to do work on your own house (if you get it inspected) but not any rental property.

Rabidsquirrel

02-13-2010, 11:21 AM

If it says Federal Pacific, don't even open anything. It's not worth dying over.

cbsmokin

02-13-2010, 02:03 PM

Good luck with your project. i'd love to see some pictures of the place.

Drat

02-13-2010, 06:25 PM

Thanks for all of the replies, both good and bad advice :)

The friend we were helping out moved out of the attic and the breaker can easily handle the load now that there isn't a computer, clock, heater, and god-knows whatever else he had plugged into that attic outlet.

It's still a concern that needs to be addressed, but not immediately (my lack of funds really appreciates that).

I'm smart enough not to tackle repairs that I know nothing about, especially when it comes to electricity. I've taken enough shocks from car batteries to know that I don't like getting shocked. Burning down our house because I wanted to save a couple of dollars is ridiculous.

As it stands, I'll probably have somebody out in spring to look at the box and see if there are any options outside of wiring in new outlets to the areas where there will be higher draws.

The house is 90 years old, but from the looks of the wiring in here, it looks like they rewired it sometime within the last 30 years.

Luckily the crawlspace is about 4.5' high, so it's not real difficult to get around down there. I'm building my homebrew draft system down there in 2 weeks (running the lines up into the liquor cabinet on the floor above). I've got my priorities straight :)

Silound

02-13-2010, 06:50 PM

cf2112

02-13-2010, 10:25 PM

If it's a FPE BREAKER box change it, we call them the "Fire Starter". They went out of business rather than be sued out of business. Fuse panels re not as bad if they are fused correctly but everyone uses 30 amp fuses instead of fusing according to wire size.

Rabidsquirrel

02-14-2010, 07:40 AM

Anything FP made is a deathtrap. Nobody in the local while throw a breaker on the switchgear if it's energized, let alone work on it.

rack04

02-14-2010, 08:16 AM

The house we just bought had a 100 amp FPE panel. It was noted as a fire hazard during the inspection. I had an electrical change out the panel and upgrade the service to 200 amp. $1600 for piece of mind was well worth it.

cf2112

02-14-2010, 08:16 AM

Anything FP made is a deathtrap. Nobody in the local while throw a breaker on the switchgear if it's energized, let alone work on it.

They made an ok fuse panel (see above comments on fuse panels) but the "stab-lock" breakers are a fire hazard.

We reccomend replacement, if they can not afford it or do not want to do it we make them sign a letter stating we asked, gave a price and they refused. About 50% will call back and have us replace the panel within a week.