I bought a 10,000 btu air conditioner I ran it for 4 hours yesterday and shut the power to my apartment so I reset the circut breaker and it did the same thing a half hour later. Is is supposed to shut the power off to my apartment?
Yes.
I was not told that by the salesperson. I looked at the manual and for windows not for indoors.
It sounds like you're running the air conditioner on an overloaded circuit. When the breaker tripped, did everything (lights, dishwasher, etc.) go out, or just the standard outlets? It's possible that all of the outlets in your apartment are on a single 15-amp circuit, but code would require that the bathrooms, kitchen, etc. be on separate circuits. In any case, the problem here is clear: the circuit you're running the air conditioner on cannot handle the additional load. You will probably need to run a dedicated 15-amp circuit to the breaker box.
Most modern window air conditioners will plug into a standard 15-amp wall receptacle, but that does not mean that you can use them on any circuit in the house. Your air conditioner, by itself, will use a large portion of the 15-amp service, so if you have other devices on the same circuit, it is easy for it to go over 15 amps and trip the breaker.
So you tripped the main but not the breaker to the branch circuit. Lets say you have 100A service (an apartment might be lower, anyway it is marked on the switch) and all the branches are 20A. Usually there are maybe ten 20A curcuits. Obviously running them all at 12A would require 120A which would not trip any branch curcuit breakers but certainly will trip the main.
This means your new A/C is "the straw that broke the camel's back" so to speak. Your total load in the apartement exceeds the breaker panels capacity. You either need to upgrade the electrical service (good luck convincing the landloard) or turn off a substantial load or two when using the A/C.
Since it took 30 minutes to 4 hours to trip, I suspect it is boarderline (requiring you to turn off only a few things) or it is associated with another load like an electric water heater, toaster oven, refridgerator, stove or some combination of the items you weren't aware you were adding them up.
My bet is on an electric water heater as they use lots of current and cycle on and off without warning or notice. You may want to turn off the breaker to that (WH) while you run the A/C. A bit inconvenient but less so than resetting all the clocks and missing the best part of the game on TV while you reset the main breaker.
I returned the ac to Home Depot and I got money back.
The landlord has to make this buliding habitable he is not I already paid my rent for this month.
Did your apartment have AC when you first looked at it? If it didn't have it before you rented, I doubt you can force the ll to upgrade the electricity to more conveniently run AC now.
In a few small parts of the country, there may be a special statute pr buidling code item for buildings no older than yours that require them all to have AC, although I don't recall hearing of such a thing. Or if all the other apartments have it, maybe you could somehow leverage that. OTOH, if they all did, it doesn't seem likely that your apartment would be wired less well than theirs. Maybe your neighbors will discuss this with you, and show you their fuse or breaker boxes. You can see if they have more amps than you do, especially if apartments no bigger than yours have more amps than you do.
But I think you'll need something more than just wanting it, and you'll have to do preparation too.
No matter how you used to live, I don't think AC is required for habitability, anywhere.
I am using fans to keep cool.
Now you are saving lots of money for a car and the roaches don't care about the temperature anyway. Next time you could try a 5,000 BTU model and it might work out OK. Actually, you want a unit that runs all the time because you achieve better dehumidification than an over sized unit that runs part time.
Yes I am. My fans work great.
Sad posters here forgot that main breaker MIGHT be bad! They are designed to become more sensitive and trip earlier as they age. Safety rule..
A smaller AC like a 8500 BTU may well solve the problem.
Sadly fans dont dehumidify the main cause of discomfort when hot
What safety rule? Got a citation? Sound more like a product defect to me.
Breakers do go bad though. I have run into several that would not trip at all so I guess they broke the rule. They do generally get more sensitive. I would bet the OP's was just overloaded. A 10,000 BTU unit is a huge drag on a light circuit!
All of my outlets have two holes. The fans do a great job there is one in the kicthen and one in the living room.
that he make repairs the workers have not been here since April and it is the middle of June.
I have my blinds shut that keeps the place cool. What about increasing the power bill my bill is only about 50.00 every 2 months.
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