will i trip breaker?

[cody2white]

Okay.. I just need someone to point me in the right direction before I get knee deep in things.

Could I run two 1k tents in one rented town house? I was thinking of staggering the 2k so the breaker never would see that. Factoring in the fans pumps etc.

Could I use the oven outlet if needed?

 

[MHHSP]

yea you could do it, anythings possible right? a standard breaker will run around 1800 watts, say 1700 without tripin. So yeah you would have to use at least 2 15 amp breakers without much else on the breakers or use the ovens 240.
If you use two breakers you can just drill a hole through the wall and run a thick extension cord, make sure its contractor grade and as short as possible.

 

[humble1]

What's the size of the main breaker for this townhouse?
How many other high watt appliances are there (microwave, oven, fridge, big screen tv) and are they in constant use or not at all?
Staggering would be better, regardless of how much juice you're already running, because your neighbors wouldn't notice your meter spinning double time half of the day when you are not home.
Townhouses might as well be apartments for your proximity to neighbors looking to snitch.

 

[Mr. Mountain]

Are you planning on running everything on one circuit breaker?

Is your gear 120V or 240V?

What is the amperage (current) rating of the breaker(s) you intend to use?

To give you a simple starting point:
1 Add up the wattage of every device you plan on using.
2 Figure out what voltage your gear runs on (120 or 240) most runs on 120.
3 Divide total watts by operating voltage. This gives you the total current that all devices will draw. Ie. a 1000W light running on 120V = 8.333333 Amps of current.
4 To operate safely you should never draw more than 80% of the max current your breaker is designed for. Ie. you should never draw more than 12A on a 15A breaker.


For the purpose of answering your question I will assume you have 120V gear and are trying to use one 15A breaker.


If you try to run all that gear, yes you will trip the breaker.

You can use the oven circuit, but you would need to split it back into two 120V circuits. (ovens are 240V, they use two 120V circuits in parallel)

If your not an electrician, don't do it yourself. Get help.


PM me if you have any more questions.




Mr. M

 

[emerald city]

what he said ^^^ better safe then sorry......Seen way to many dreams go up in flames due to bad planning.

 

[MHHSP]

yep Mr. M is correct...so the formula is AxV=W ampsXvolts=watts
12ampsx120volts(standard)= 1440 watts, enough for a 1K light and fans and controls, not much else though, I mean throw on the TV in that room and its lights out for your plants.

On the other hand a 240 v will get ya, 12x240= 2880 watts, enough for all, electricity is cheaper off a 240 as well, if ya can survive on microwaved food haha. Electric rates are also lower at night.

 

[Tilt]

electricity is cheaper off a 240 as well. not true

something someone taught me when I started as an apprentice. A watt is a watt no matter what. Utility charges based on watts used not voltage or amps but watts. Sometimes a watt cost more sometimes less but always per watt

 

[Tilt]

The first thing I would do is go to my panel & find out which breaker controls each of the outlets in my rooms. plug in a lamp and flip breakers till it shuts off note it then proceed to the next one. Map out your entire house. That will tell you how many amps you have available to each area. also note what you have plugged in already for load purposes

The oven outlet if it has a nuetral can be turned into a sub panel.

 

[cody2white]

Thank you everyone for the responses! I wouldn't be living there so extra juice wouldn't be an issu. So im pretty confident i wouldnt trip the breaker. Im going to go scouting tomorrow for a decent place and get my list together. Thank you again everyone

 

[MHHSP]

thanks for the correction tilt, misinformation I never verified

 

[pearlemae]

I'd use he dryer outlet befor the oven its easier to get to.

 

[mars_to_uranus]

If no one is living there you won't have any problems running 2kW. Like others have said, make sure you spread the load across different circuits.

120v circuits really screw you guys over. Where i am down under everything is 240v and 2kW can be run off a lighting circuit no problems, and double that for a regular 20 amp power circuit. I've just aquired some 415 volt (2-phase) metal halide fittings that were going to be thrown out. They run at ~3 amps per 1kW so i could potentially run 5kW off one 15 amp outlet, lol.

 

[humble1]

I've just aquired some 415 volt (2-phase) metal halide fittings that were going to be thrown out. They run at ~3 amps per 1kW so i could potentially run 5kW off one 15 amp outlet, lol.

80% of 15 amps is still 12 amps or 4kW @ 3 amps a piece.
Is 2 phase different in this regard?

 

[mars_to_uranus]

80% of 15 amps is still 12 amps or 4kW @ 3 amps a piece.
Is 2 phase different in this regard?

I was refering to a 15 amp outlet. If it's spec'd for 15 amps then it should be able to run the whole 15 amps.

The circuit supplying it would use 2 x 20 amp breakers and 80% of 20 amps is 16 amps. If it was a short cable run the breakers could get bumped up to 25 amps (2.5mm2 cable ~ AWG 13). Remember i'm not in Nth America so the rules may be different for us.

I'm not sure where the 80% rule comes from, i wonder if it's a coincidence that it matches the average power factor of a magnetic ballast, 0.8. If a 120v 1000W ballast has a power factor of 0.8, it doesn't draw 8.33 amps. It draws 1000w / 120v / 0.8 = 10.42 amps. So the 80% rule actually loads your circuits to capacity if you're using magnetic ballasts and using the wattage to calculate amps.

Electronic ballasts usually have power factors of 0.99 so they don't suffer the same problem.

Most ballasts should state either the power factor or the amp rating. My 415v 1000w ballasts have a 3 amp rating, yet 1000/415 = 2.4 amps. 1000/415/0.8 = 3 amps.

Note: Power companies bill wattage, not amps. So don't worry about power factor influencing your power bill. Damn it, i'm rambling again

 

[stoney917]

i just settin up a new room go extra and use less no need for calculations and no worries on shit blowin upf in residentual on 20 amp 1k per fans .. with shit seperste for hydro system pumps ect. run extra power. if doin nething

 

[ddrew]

Thank you everyone for the responses! I wouldn't be living there so extra juice wouldn't be an issu. So im pretty confident i wouldnt trip the breaker.

You do understand after all these responses that there is more then one breaker in your house right?

 

[strydr]

I was refering to a 15 amp outlet. If it's spec'd for 15 amps then it should be able to run the whole 15 amps.

Misinformation..

the 80% is a general electrical rule, not tied to a ballast, or any other electrical equipment. If you plan on drawing 15 amps for a very short duration (like a table saw powering up), no biggie, but if you plan on drawing a constant load (more than a few min.), you should never exceed this 80% load per breaker. Doing so increases the chance of catastrophic electrical failure of your breaker, and potentially, the entire panel. Not a good thing..

 

[mars_to_uranus]

I'm talking about a power outlet, NOT the breaker.

You must have missed this part from my last post

The circuit supplying it would use 2 x 20 amp breakers and 80% of 20 amps is 16 amps.

btw if 15 amps takes out a whole panel like you're suggesting there would have to be something criminally wrong with it. Breakers here are rated to trip more than 3000 amps before failure occurs.

 

[strydr]

I'm talking about a power outlet, NOT the breaker.

You must have missed this part from my last post


btw if 15 amps takes out a whole panel like you're suggesting there would have to be something criminally wrong with it. Breakers here are rated to trip more than 3000 amps before failure occurs.

Yup, missed that part..

Yes, if a breaker takes out the entire panel, there is a serious problem with it. I actually had to change out my panel, for just that reason. This was a old panel, but not unheard of in lots of homes in the States.

"The circuit supplying it would use 2 x 20 amp breakers and 80% of 20 amps is 16 amps."

I guess I'm not up to speed on EU electricity standards, but this confuses me. Are you going to use the hot leg off two 20amp breakers? If so, I don't understand why you wouldn't just change out the two breakers for a double pole, 240 (or w/e corresponding EU voltage) breaker. Running it off two breakers may unbalance the load.

"If it was a short cable run the breakers could get bumped up to 25 amps (2.5mm2 cable ~ AWG 13). Remember i'm not in Nth America so the rules may be different for us."

Unless the cable is rated to handle this load, I would not suggest changing out the breaker for a bigger one. Just because the run is short, doesn't mean you can bump up the amperage of the breaker. The wire size and breaker are a matched pair, changing out one, without changing out the other is a fire hazard (and against the C10 electrical code in USA)

 

[cody2white]

You do understand after all these responses that there is more then one breaker in your house right?

Lol yeah..

everything worked out great thanks again guys