Home Electrical Basics 101

Main Circuit Breaker . The service panel contains a large main breaker that is the switch controlling the power to the rest of the circuit breakers inside the panel. It is sized according to your home's service capacity. A standard panel today provides 200-amp (ampere) service. Older panels were sized for 150, 100, or fewer amps (amperes).

Home Wiring Basics. Share ... which may be mounted on an exterior wall or may be located inside the home's breaker box. The meter records all electricity used by the home, measured in kilowatt-hours, or kWh. A 100-watt light bulb burning for 10 hours uses 1 kWh of electricity.

Twelve-gauge wire suits 15- to 20-amp breakers; 8-gauge wire goes with 40- or 60-amp two-pole breakers. Grounding In the maze of wires that inhabits your breaker box, there’s one more to be ...

Basic House Wiring Circuits and Circuit Breakers: The types and sizes of Circuit Breakers, 15 amp 120 volt circuits, ... The electrical circuit breakers serving your home wiring circuits are intended for switching and protection of your home's wiring from high temperatures caused by excess current higher than the rating of the wire.

Why is the Circuit Breaker Box Important for Home Safety? The electricity that flows from your utility company’s line passes through the meter and into the main circuit breaker panel.This leaves you and your family susceptible to electric hazards from your home appliances, HVAC system, and the electronic equipment and electric shocks, burns and fires can do serious damage to life and property.

Throughout the house, one hot wire and one neutral wire power conventional 120-volt lights and appliances. Both hot wires and the neutral wire make a 240-volt circuit for large appliances such as air conditioners and electric furnaces. An electric meter, monitored by your electric utility company, is mounted where the electricity enters your house.

The circuit breaker is an absolutely essential device in the modern world, and one of the most important safety mechanisms in your home. Whenever electrical wiring in a building has too much current flowing through it, these simple machines cut the power until somebody can fix the problem.

Inside the covering, you'll find a copper wire (the ground wire), a white covered wire (the neutral wire), a black wire (the hot wire), and a red wire (another hot wire). In the sub-panel box, the neutral and ground wires will connect the same as they do in the main breaker box, but the red and black wires will connect to the hot bar instead of a circuit breaker.

Learn about tips for easier home electrical wiring here. Why Do Breakers Trip? The circuit and circuit breaker that you tripped have a capacity of 15 amps, or 1,800 watts (15 amps x 120 volts = 1,800 watts). The lights drew 360 watts, or a measly 3 amps (360 watts divided by 120 volts = 3 amps)—well within the capacity of your 15-amp system.

A 20-amp breaker is never* allowed to run any circuit whose wires (anywhere on the circuit) are 14-gauge. But a 15-amp breaker's wires out on the circuit may be 14-gauge, 12-gauge, or even a mixture. Yes, even larger wires than these are possible (10-gauge), but become difficult to install properly and give little benefit. The rating of a ...