calling all electricans

[Skimmerking]

ok here is what Im looking at my in wall plugs are on a 15 amp circuit can I take out the 15 amp and install a 20 amp breaker. cause I have 2x 250's and a 1x 400 MH on one plug so if I have the TV on I think that its tripping the breaker so can I up the breaker to a 20 amp.

[Buzz]

ok here is what Im looking at my in wall plugs are on a 15 amp circuit can I take out the 15 amp and install a 20 amp breaker. cause I have 2x 250's and a 1x 400 MH on one plug so if I have the TV on I think that its tripping the breaker so can I up the breaker to a 20 amp.

What size wire?

[Skimmerking]

its white 14/2 i think that is what it says

[Buzz]

12/2 is needed for a 20 amp breaker.

[frizzo1983]

No you can not do what you are thinking first of all a 15 amp breaker is only rated for 80 % of 15 amps this is a code rule. Second the wire will not support you running a 20 amp circuit. If I were you you should bring a new circuit to where you need it. Just my honest opinion.

If you have any other questions just pm me

Scott

[BlueTang<3]

Just replace the current breaker with what you have the breaker fatigues and the metalic strip becomes weak after time you'll be set. I was having the same issue a whie back. For a 20 amp breaker you need 12 gauge wire i recall.

[Buzz]

I guess I should also say I'm not and electrician. But the I just finished wiring my garage and I used 12/2 wire so I could run 20A breakers for welders and other power tools. I read the local code book and it said 12/2 is the minimum wire size for a 20A breaker.

[cwatkins]

I would look at running a dedicated GFCI circuit from your panel. (Either GFCI at the outlet or at the breaker). 15 or 20amp, whichever you prefer. You'll get 12 amps from a 15 circuit. That's more than enough for your lighting.

[Skimmerking]

ok i can run a circuit that isn't a problem ok .

[bauder1986]

Keep this in mind to as well when you are calculating the amp of your fixtures that they draw. 110 watts of lighting is 1 amp. soo a 250 watt MH is 2.3 amps of steady draw and then you have to keep in mind how much draw your ballasts have when the fire up.

Now keep in mind that when electricians wire in a house they run a parralel that runs no more that 12 amps max! Every plug in a parallel is concidered one amp and every light is concidered 1 amp and smoke detectors are concidered .25 amps. Pot lights are concidered .5 amps since most of them are 50 to 75 watts max. but the moral of the story is that your tanks is most likely not the only thing that you have plugged into that parallel so you may have more draw than your tank such as your TV which probably draws around 3 amps steady. and your lights draw 8.2 amps steady...so yah that is pushing it.

But yah i would replace the old 15 amp breaker with a new one just to be safe and run a dedicated GFCI 20 amp breaker to the tank with 12/2 wire and leave it at that.

[Skimmerking]

Keep this in mind to as well when you are calculating the amp of your fixtures that they draw. 110 watts of lighting is 1 amp. so a 250 watt MH is 2.3 amps of steady draw and then you have to keep in mind how much draw your ballasts have when the fire up.

Now keep in mind that when electricians wire in a house they run a parallel that runs no more that 12 amps max! Every plug in a parallel is considered one amp and every light is considered 1 amp and smoke detectors are considered .25 amps. Pot lights are considered .5 amps since most of them are 50 to 75 watts max. but the moral of the story is that your tanks is most likely not the only thing that you have plugged into that parallel so you may have more draw than your tank such as your TV which probably draws around 3 amps steady. and your lights draw 8.2 amps steady...so yah that is pushing it.

But yah i would replace the old 15 amp breaker with a new one just to be safe and run a dedicated GFCI 20 amp breaker to the tank with 12/2 wire and leave it at that.

ya that is what I will do run a 3 plug system just for the lights. one plug parallel for each timer or I may just get thou build in timers the actinic, night lights and vortex will stay on that line to make it easier

[Aquattro]

3 MH and a big screen will trip the breaker. I know, i just had to run a separate circuit to my tank for this reason. Also take into account your heaters and pumps. You really can't run a tank your size on one circuit :)

[Skimmerking]

3 MH and a big screen will trip the breaker. I know, i just had to run a separate circuit to my tank for this reason. Also take into account your heaters and pumps. You really can't run a tank your size on one circuit :)
ya that is what I was thing Brad. I will keep the
return pump ocean runnner 2500
ehiem 1260 skimmer pump
2x300 W heaters all n one circuit
and a 20 amp for the
3x250's
vortech
maxi flow
25 W night lite.
that should do it right and

thanks to you all for the help tonight

[Binare]

Dont do a gfci breaker, do a gfci receptacle instead.... Unless the plug will be behind your tank. That will save ya a hundred bucks or so. More so when it becomes weak and needs to be replaced. As a side note, yes ya can run a total of 12 devices off a 15amp circuit... Unless you know its intended purpose. Hopefully you put t-slot receptacles on your 20 amp circuit in your garage, your insurance company may give ya the boot if you ever have an issue out there.

[Buzz]

Hopefully you put t-slot receptacles on your 20 amp circuit in your garage, your insurance company may give ya the boot if you ever have an issue out there.

Even if it passed inspection with out the t-slot receptacles?

[raceit]

The thing to keep in mind is the purpose of the breaker, protection of the wire, not the device plugged into the outlet.

#14 = 15 amps
#12 = 20 amps
#10 = 30 amps
etc etc

max circuit load is 80 %

[Binare]

Even if it passed inspection with out the t-slot receptacles?

I have alot to say about inspectors... Just not publicly ;-)

[Binare]

The thing to keep in mind is the purpose of the breaker, protection of the wire, not the device plugged into the outlet.

#14 = 15 amps
#12 = 20 amps
#10 = 30 amps
etc etc

max circuit load is 80 %

yes and no. Depends on the duty rating of the breaker, whether the device is continious or non continious etc etc. . Hell some breakers dont trip at all. Federal Pioneer anyone? Dont worry, they finally fixed them hehe.

[raceit]

fp breakers are for welding, no stinger required lol

[2pts]

I'm not an electrician. I wired my own house (complete 200 amp service, 4500sqft).

I work with several electricians, and asked one "if you were gonna build a new house for yourself, what would you do that most premade houses don't have?"

His answer "I would install gfci outlets at the first outlet of each circuit". (If wired right it protects all remaining outlets on that circuit.)

So, I did that, the inspector said there was nothing wrong with the way I wired it, very safe, but I would have tonnes of "nuisance trips" from the outlets. Well I did, and promptly rewired almost all GFCI outlets so they only protected themselves, not the down line outlets.

I know it was overkill and expensive, but what I did was run 14/3 to my fishtank circuit, which is 2 seperate double plugs. (Be careful if you do this, research it a lot.) The white (neutral) is shared with the 2 hot circuits (red/black). In the panel I put in a double pole 15amp GFCI breaker ( $150 breaker).

I regret running the 14/3, that locked me into a 2 pole breaker, which is more money. If I did it again I would run either 2 lines of 14/2 and 2 single pole 15 amp gfci breakers or better yet 2 @ 12/2 lines and 2 single pole 20 amp gfci breakers. Reason being, if one circuit trips, it trips both breakers, meaning all my pumps die, except my return pump in the basement which runs in the sump and is plugged into a gfci plug on a whole other circuit.

[StirCrazy]

I know it was overkill and expensive, but what I did was run 14/3 to my fishtank circuit, which is 2 seperate double plugs. (Be careful if you do this, research it a lot.) The white (neutral) is shared with the 2 hot circuits (red/black). In the panel I put in a double pole 15amp GFCI breaker ( $150 breaker).

I regret running the 14/3, that locked me into a 2 pole breaker, which is more money. If I did it again I would run either 2 lines of 14/2 and 2 single pole 15 amp gfci breakers or better yet 2 @ 12/2 lines and 2 single pole 20 amp gfci breakers. Reason being, if one circuit trips, it trips both breakers, meaning all my pumps die, except my return pump in the basement which runs in the sump and is plugged into a gfci plug on a whole other circuit.

I was going to suggest running 12/3. I did this in my old house then used 15 amp breaker and 15 amp recepticles. I went for the 20 amp wire so if I found I needed the extra power later I could just change the breaker to 20 amp and the outlets also for cheep.

I don't know why you regretted doing it breakers are dirt cheep and you don't need a double pole. you can run two 15amp single slot breakers that way they will trip independently I have two circutes in this house that are run that way. 40 bucks in breakers (I have the expensive type in the new sub pannel :sad: ) if you have stablock you can get them for 10 to 15 bucks each.

Steve

[2pts]

I don't know why you regretted doing it breakers are dirt cheep and you don't need a double pole. you can run two 15amp single slot breakers that way they will trip independently I have two circutes in this house that are run that way. 40 bucks in breakers (I have the expensive type in the new sub pannel :sad: ) if you have stablock you can get them for 10 to 15 bucks each.

Steve

Oh for sure I could have easily done what you said, but by making the choice of having the GFCI in the breaker, not the outlet, that is where the cost weant way up.

Here is a link to the breaker I have at home depot...
http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?D=941174&Ntt=941174&catalogId=10051&langId=-15&storeId=10051&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntx=mode+matchall&N=0&Ntk=P_PartNumber

[mike31154]

I'd advise against running any "3" wire such as 14/3 or 12/3 as well for much the same reason as 2pts has mentioned. I wired up some bedroom circuits with 14/3 on a single Siemens AFCI circuit breaker specially designed for two circuits. I then saw a "Note" in the "Electrical Code Simplified" book by PS Knight, that states an AFCI breaker "cannot be used with three wire cables, only two supply wire cables may be used." Mind you, the illustration in the book shows a Square D single pole Arc Fault breaker and there's a newer version of the book available with much more info on AFCI & GFCI requirements. I haven't had a chance to look at the latest revisions, but I reckon if Siemens produces double pole AFCI breakers designed for their panels and for use with 3 wire cable, it's more than likely safe and I haven't had a problem since installing mine. Not sure whether I could have used two 14/2 cables with this breaker instead of the 14/3, can't seem to find the installation instructions at the moment. Looks like the center neutral connection on the breaker could handle two neutrals. Anyhow, I digress, I think. I did say I regret doing this. Main reason is the size of the breaker itself, it's massive & uses up several spaces in the panel, and while you save a bit on wiring with the 3 conductor cable, I don't really like the idea of the single neutral wire carrying the return current for both hot leads feeding two separate circuits. This seems to go somewhat against another code requirement calling for adequate separation of wire runs to protect from overheating & fire. In 3 wire cable, they're all bundled together nice & tight in the outer sheathing.

How does that relate to wiring a GFCI protected circuit with 3 wire cable? While I didn't find the same Note I alluded to in the previous paragraph in my trusty "Simplified Code" book, it does say to use only 2 wire cable because the GFI circuit breaker will not work if wired with 3 wire cable. This does make sense since the principle behind a GFI is to compare incoming to outgoing current in the hot & neutral, then trip once the current mismatch reaches the design threshold which is in the 3 to 5 milliamp range. It's easy to see that with a 3 wire cable (2 hots & 1 neutral), it's pretty much guaranteed that there will be a current mismatch in fairly short order. Therefore any circuits in your home wired using 3 wire cable are poor candidates for a GFCI device. Having said that, the link 2pts provides in his post clearly shows a dandy Siemens 2 pole GFCI circuit breaker that's got the same form factor as the 2 pole AFCI breaker I installed. I can only surmise that one would use two separate 14/2 cables to wire up this device and the magic involved in comparing current flow happens inside the breaker.

In any case, my preference is to run two separate 15 amp circuits using 14/2 wire over a single 20 amp circuit wherever possible. The smaller guage 14 wire is easier to work with and you get a total of 30 amps with the redundancy of two separate circuits and additional flexibility as to the use of GFCI devices (breaker or receptacle, your choice). Of course for places like the garage, workshop, outdoor outlets where you know you'll be using devices & tools capable of drawing close to 20 amps per single device, 20 amp or larger circuit is the way to go. Just be prepared to pay a premium for 20 amp GFI devices & other hardware.

[StirCrazy]

Mike, you want to use GFIC outlets not breakers (mich cheaper) when you use 3 wire. my stuff is gfic protected and its 3 wire, and it was done by a real electrition and inspected, as fixing the mess I bought was to big of a job for me and it was cheaper to pay and electrition than to buy some of the tools I would have needed.

I have been using the electrical code book made simple for about 7 years now and remember it is only a tiny slice of easy things for home owners so they can do simple things and or gain a little bit of knowlage so they can understand when an electrition is giving you a quote or explaining something to you. it is far far from containing the whole electrical code.

Steve

[donlite]

2 points First is you need to know the gauge of wire in your wall and second you should only run a breaker at about %80 of rate. If you use a larger breaker and the wire is not rated for it you are looking for trouble.:sad:

[blacknife]

all good points. I am about to run some temporary runs to my fish tank area< i need to build walls before i do permanent runs> but i must be on the right path because i was planing to do it about the way you guys are saying :)

[Lampshade]

All good points, biggest thing is that small wire size = heat buildup. Some poeple put in 20A breakers on 15A circuits without problems, mainly because they have a hair dryer kicking the circuit out or something. It's still bad.. but not a huge fire hazard. The deal with the fish tank is that you'll be puling a big draw for hours at a time, allowing the wires to heat up, creating more voltage drop, causeing more heat... until it gets bad. I'm pulling a second circuit for my tank this weekend for the same reason, i'm not tripping the breaker, but i'm running VERY close(i've tripped it with a 250W heater added). I just want extra room for security.

As for GFCI breakers, the wall plugs are defintily cheaper, but check out craigslist for GFCI breakers. Sadly they're probably stolen from worksites, but they're often on there.

[mike31154]

Mike, you want to use GFIC outlets not breakers (mich cheaper) when you use 3 wire. my stuff is gfic protected and its 3 wire, and it was done by a real electrition and inspected, as fixing the mess I bought was to big of a job for me and it was cheaper to pay and electrition than to buy some of the tools I would have needed.

I have been using the electrical code book made simple for about 7 years now and remember it is only a tiny slice of easy things for home owners so they can do simple things and or gain a little bit of knowlage so they can understand when an electrition is giving you a quote or explaining something to you. it is far far from containing the whole electrical code.

Steve

Thank you Steve, I use a combination of devices, breakers and receptacles. I'm also aware that the 'simplified residential' book doesn't cover everything, but certainly deals with most things the average home owner is going to come across. The introduction of GFI & AFI devices in the past few years have been some fairly major revisions, but much of the other stuff has remained unchanged for quite some time. In the USA the move is actually towards protecting every single circuit in the house with either an AFI or GFI depending on application. I believe the only exception they will give you is your fridge or freezer so you're less likely to spoil all your food in the event of the nasty nuisance trip which certainly plagued the earlier versions of these devices. Not sure whether they've got it totally sorted out yet with the technology. Personally I think they're going overboard in the US with this and some congressman's financial advisor has a bunch of shares in electrical device manufacturing companies!! If that's the way they want to go, might as well install one big honking AFI/GFI as the main breaker and be done with it.

[mike31154]

All good points, biggest thing is that small wire size = heat buildup. Some poeple put in 20A breakers on 15A circuits without problems, mainly because they have a hair dryer kicking the circuit out or something. It's still bad.. but not a huge fire hazard. The deal with the fish tank is that you'll be puling a big draw for hours at a time, allowing the wires to heat up, creating more voltage drop, causeing more heat... until it gets bad. I'm pulling a second circuit for my tank this weekend for the same reason, i'm not tripping the breaker, but i'm running VERY close(i've tripped it with a 250W heater added). I just want extra room for security.

As for GFCI breakers, the wall plugs are defintily cheaper, but check out craigslist for GFCI breakers. Sadly they're probably stolen from worksites, but they're often on there.

Yes, smaller wire will build up excess heat when too much current is applied and that's exactly why it's against code to install a 20 amp breaker on a circuit wired with 14 guage wire! As long as you stick to the code requirements, 14 guage wire is just fine. Maybe it's not a huge fire hazard in some folks' eyes to switch to a 20 amp breaker for their hair dryer without upping to 12 guage wire, but I wouldn't advise doing this and aside from the safety hazard, your home insurance is now null and void with respect to potential electrical fires.

[2pts]

If that's the way they want to go, might as well install one big honking AFI/GFI as the main breaker and be done with it.

Actually, funny you should say that. In my main panel, the first 2 single pole breaker (covers both hot lines) is a breaker that is designed to protect the entire house (well the electrical system) from outside electrical surges such as lightning resulting in an electrical surge coming in through the meter. http://www.sea.siemens.com/us/Products/Residential-Electrical/Product/Surge-Protection/Pages/Circuit-Breaker-and-Surge-Protective-Device.aspx

Nothing to do with GFCI's or AFCI's but pretty cool none the less, mine came in a package with my main panel.

[mike31154]

Actually, funny you should say that. In my main panel, the first 2 single pole breaker (covers both hot lines) is a breaker that is designed to protect the entire house (well the electrical system) from outside electrical surges such as lightning resulting in an electrical surge coming in through the meter. http://www.sea.siemens.com/us/Products/Residential-Electrical/Product/Surge-Protection/Pages/Circuit-Breaker-and-Surge-Protective-Device.aspx

Nothing to do with GFCI's or AFCI's but pretty cool none the less, mine came in a package with my main panel.

Thanks for the link, had a quick look. Not sure it protects your whole house though, looks like a two pole 15 amp device that provides surge protection in addition to normal circuit protection for the two circuits it supplies.

[mseepman]

I used to work for an electical firm in town (on their computer side of the business) and we installed various forms of what you see in that link. Many of them did protect the entire house and were very reasonable in price. I can't remember the specifics but I could try to find out if someone wanted me to.

[Skimmerking]

ok im heading out for supper and going to be getting some wire please some one text me on this ok

if i just run the 3x250's on a 15 amp breaker is that enough.

204-573-8021 thanks

[StirCrazy]

ok im heading out for supper and going to be getting some wire please some one text me on this ok

if i just run the 3x250's on a 15 amp breaker is that enough.

204-573-8021 thanks

on its own if you stagger the start times by a few minuits it should work. but if you pop the breaker you lose all your lights, better to put one of them on a different circut.

Steve

[Skimmerking]

cool i will do that man thanks

[2pts]

Thanks for the link, had a quick look. Not sure it protects your whole house though, looks like a two pole 15 amp device that provides surge protection in addition to normal circuit protection for the two circuits it supplies.

Yup it does the whole house, it is the first breaker on each phase, it instantly sends all surges to the ground, as electricity will always flow the fastest and shortest route to ground. At least that (or something like it) is what I read back when I was researching it.

It comes in a panel pack @ home depot, pop in that isle next time and read up on it (box and pamphlet I believe), it's a pretty cool gadget.

[mike31154]

3x250 is 750, which is less than half of what a 15 amp circuit is rated for (1800 max, 1200 continous I think). There may be a somewhat higher draw on start up but not necessarily, depends on your ballasts, bulbs etc.

While you're out picking up the wire, why not grab an EM100 energy monitor. Looks a lot like a large timer and will show any number of paramaters of what you have plugged into it, current, voltage, wattage, Kwh, even cost if you enter your hydro rate into the thing. When I checked my 2 MH 250s with this device, it actually showed they were drawing somewhat less than the rated 250 watts. I'm currently using cheapo Plusrite 14000K lamps and the two of them draw just over 400 amps once fully fired up. If I remember correctly when I monitored the wattage with the EM100 on start up, they drew even less until fully warmed up. Instead of a surge at startup as with most other components, particularly motors, my MH set up actually builds up wattage slowly to less than max rated. 10000K XM lamps which I had installed before, drew about 485 watts when fully warmed up on my Advance M58 magnetic ballasts. I'd say if the 3x250 MH are all you're going to run on a single 15 amp circuit, you should be fine.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=84552444327 9714

[mike31154]

Yup it does the whole house, it is the first breaker on each phase, it instantly sends all surges to the ground, as electricity will always flow the fastest and shortest route to ground. At least that (or something like it) is what I read back when I was researching it.

It comes in a panel pack @ home depot, pop in that isle next time and read up on it (box and pamphlet I believe), it's a pretty cool gadget.

Very interesting, I'll definitely have a look see. I've got a Siemens 100 amp panel which replaced an old "Pushmatic" panel that had only 12 breakers. It's an older home and when I first checked out the old Pushmatic E panel it was pretty scary. There were no spare circuits whatsoever and the previous owners had an extra set of 240 volt wires in there. At some point they installed an electric dryer to replace a natural gas one and this meant that the central air conditioning had to be disconnected to run the dryer, ha ha. They were swapping wires on the 30 amp 2 phase breaker every time either the electric dryer or the air con was the priority!

[StirCrazy]

3x250 is 750, which is less than half of what a 15 amp circuit is rated for (1800 max, 1200 continous I think). There may be a somewhat higher draw on start up but not necessarily, depends on your ballasts, bulbs etc.



except a 250 watt MH normaly draws more like 400 watts. (mine were true HQI ballasts and ran at 456 watts) which is 1200 continuious, some electric do underdrive the bulbs, which is why electric ballasts generly have lower outputs than mag ballasts. on start up they can go in excess of 600 watts. so like I stated with staggered starts they will work, but better to have one on another circut. same with the pumps heaters ect.. anything that could kill your tank if you lose it.

Steve

[mike31154]

except a 250 watt MH normaly draws more like 400 watts. (mine were true HQI ballasts and ran at 456 watts) which is 1200 continuious, some electric do underdrive the bulbs, which is why electric ballasts generly have lower outputs than mag ballasts. on start up they can go in excess of 600 watts. so like I stated with staggered starts they will work, but better to have one on another circut. same with the pumps heaters ect.. anything that could kill your tank if you lose it.

Steve

Gotcha and totally understand, that's why in my post I also said to grab a power monitor so that you can check/confirm what the draw of your particular set up is. As mentioned, mine draws less and I also mentioned that a different set up could draw more. The power monitors are less than 30 bucks depending on which one you buy and can be a very handy device to have around the house.

A 250 MH that draws 400? That seems a bit steep and sounds like an inefficient set up. Pre mature burnout etc..

[Skimmerking]

thanks for the advice and the Texts that I received. I really apreciate it

I went and from PM's and posts I bought a
65Ft of 14/2 on sale 30 bucks
1x normal plug $1.40
2 x boxes $2
1 x GFCi plug Free
hooking it up to my Main box and not killing my self

PRICELESS

[blacknife]

hooking it up to my Main box and not killing my self

PRICELESS


set everything up.
get flashlight.
turn off main breaker.

terminate ends and connect making it all look nice and tidy like it should already look.

pray to whatever deity you prefer

re-energize

hopefully you got some of those little round things to put where the wire goes in the box. that screw down and hold the wire in instead of letting it rub on the sharp sides of the breaker box. hah i can't find mine right now and have 3 circuits waiting to pull in i guess i should go buy some.

[StirCrazy]

A 250 MH that draws 400? That seems a bit steep and sounds like an inefficient set up. Pre mature burnout etc..

nope, its called a proper true M80 ballast, and the same Bulb run off that will out preform a electronic ballast by far as they are actualy being run properly with the right combanation of amprage and voltage. Some electronics come close close but most are under driving the bulb. and for what its worth I got longer bulb life off my M80 than I did off the electronic also.

Steve