Did you know that the average U. S. household uses nearly 900 kWh of electricity per month? All those light bulbs, microwave dinners, and late nights watching TV really add up.
Have you ever wondered how your home knows to send certain amounts of electricity to different parts of your home? And how does it know when to cut off that electricity supply for safety?
This and more is the job of the circuit breaker in your home. Keep reading to learn what a circuit breaker is and how it works.
What is a Circuit Breaker?
We all have many electrical devices plugged in and using electricity in our houses all at the same time. Light bulbs, kitchen appliances, electronics, and other devices all contribute to the electrical load carried by your home.
If all the appliances, water heaters, and small electrical devices in your home received energy in a direct flow from the power plant, you could risk overloading your home’s electrical grid and causing a fire.
This is where the circuit breaker comes in. As the name suggests, a circuit breaker takes the electrical supply coming into your home and breaks it down into a number of circuits. These circuits each have their own dedicated on/off switch and are in a circuit breaker box.
Sometimes older folks refer to this as a fuse box because houses used to have fuses to do the work of circuit breakers. However, a fuse can only interrupt the flow of electricity once before it must be replaced. You never have to replace a circuit breaker because works again and again.
Different parts of your house will have their own dedicated circuit breaker switches. For example, bedrooms and offices tend to be included on the same breakers, while the kitchen’s electricity supply may be run by a different breaker. Putting the different parts of your house onto different breakers makes it easier and safer to control the electricity supply coming into your home.
Sites like Bay Power have more in-depth info on the different components of a circuit breaker and how they work.
How Does it Work?
There are several different types of circuit breakers, graded by how many amps they can carry. Most residential circuit breakers vary between 15 and 30 amp limits.
Without getting too technical about it, each electrical device that you use requires a certain number of amps to function. If the electricity being pulled through a circuit is too much for that circuit to handle, one of the circuit breaker components melts and trips the circuit breaker switch. This interrupts the flow of power to that circuit and effectively turns off all the electrical devices on that circuit.
The overload point for each circuit is determined separately from the other circuits in your home. This is why you might be able to use the blender in the kitchen, a blow dryer in the upstairs bathroom, and a huge set of speakers in the basement without any problems. If you tried to plug all those in in the same room, though, you’d likely run into issues.
Put Your Advanced Electrical Knowledge to Use
Now that you know how circuit breakers work to protect you and your home, you don’t have to stress the next time the power supply stops. Simply reset a circuit breaker and rest assured in the knowledge that it’s just doing its job.
Interested in learning more about how the systems in your home operate? Take a look at some of the many articles in the home improvement section of our site!