finding what breaker serves what circuit

[Ken]

The previous (original) owner of my house never labeled the circuit breakers in the breaker panel. Every time I go to change a light fixture or a receptacle, I have to go thru this trial/error process to find the breaker to shut off. Now that I'm selling the house, I'd like to have all the breakers labeled so the new owner won't have the same problems. Is there a better way to figure out what breaker serves what outlet/light/fixture/etc other than just flipping each breaker, one-at-a-time until the right circuit goes dead?

[Stormin Mormon]

I met an old electrician one time who used to short out the socket, and then go look and see which one tripped. I'm not sure I like that idea.

I usually plug in a radio and turn it up to max. Then when the radio goes silent, I know I've got the breaker.

[georgie]

I went thru this exercise a few months ago myself. It's a pain, but the trial/error method is the way to go. You'll spend an hour or so, but you'll be done with it.

g

[scott21230]

If you have a really long extension cord and a drop light, plug it into socket for testing, then run the cord to area near circuit breaker and keep trying breakers until you find the right one.

[spudnuty]

I use a really noisey hair dryer to do this. It also vibrates a lot so when you lay it on the floor you can hear the vibration throughout the whole house. I also put it on the end of an extension cord as mentioned above and only had a problem with it one time. I heard it go off and it wouldn't go back on when I reset the breaker. I had the outlet apart and was checking the exterior conduit that the circuit ran down in when the neighbor lady yelled out the window "You know your hair dryer fell out the window so I turned it off". The window was on the 3rd floor and it was on a 50' extension cord. Richard

[Sev]

Right, and the labels usually can't be trusted- as the service gets updated over time, only a conscientious few bother to update the labels. I've often thought there's got to be a better way.

[hallerb]

turn off one breaker at a time, walk thru home, and label at outlet which breaker it is. repeat till your done

thats what a friend did, with a lael maker, its convenient but looks a little wierd

[WirelessNut]

I just did the same exercise in my house. I picked up a circuot tester at Home Depot. It only works with outlets, but it works great. You plug a device into the outlet you want to identify. Then you go to the breaker panel and run a wand down the circuits. When you hit the right one, it the wand starts beeping. This is SO much better than the old way! Saved hours, and did a much more thorough job. My old house had a number of funky wiring combinations (never knew the master bath was on the same cicuit as the garage lights) that would have taken a while to figure out without this device.

They have also updated it since I bought mine to make it easier to use. Here's the link:

[mm]

ROTFL I got a phone call a few weeks ago that my machine answered. My next door neighbor was leaving for wrok in the morning and he saw my passenger door ajar about an inch. He was afraid to close it, but I didn't answer the phone, and he was afraid NOT to close it. So he closed. it. Which was fine with me. I tried to imagine why I might not want it closed, and I coudln't think of one, and I guess he couldn't either.

I wonder if I had been your neighbor if I could have thought why you wanted your hair dryer running at the bottom of the wall. She yelled to you and my neighbor called me. Very good.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

[George E. Cawthon]

You certainly have to do testing, but you need to do it logically. Start with the large breakers first and work to the smaller ones. You do not turn one breaker off and then look for the circuit, you start with all breakers off and then turn one breaker on and test. The largest breakers will generally be a single appliance, such as electric furnace, A/C, electric stove, electric clothes dryer, dish washer, etc. When you get to the 15A breakers, you will likely be dealing with lights and outlets and these will usually be grouped in an area, e.g., bedroom, or bedrooms, bathroom, outside, etc.

So. Flip the biggest breaker to on and go look for the biggest appliance and turn it on to see if that is the appliance until you find the appliance that goes on. When you get to the 15A breakers outlets, all you need is a small lamp, flip the breaker and then insert the plug in every socket until you find one and then try all the sockets in the general area, and flip switches for lights. Flip that breaker off, turn another on, and proceed with testing. Depending on the size of the house, it won't take that long.

[Kyle Boatright]

Turn on all your appliances - lamps, TV's, etc.

Flip all the breakers off in your house.

Then flip one on. See what comes back on and label the breaker. Repeat until finished.

Seems to be a quicker solution than trial and error.

Dunno why.

[m Ransley]

Radio Shack sells a device that plugs into an outlet than another unit you handhold near the circuit it buzzes when near the breaker, But it is not completly accurate. Have someone in the basement flipp breakers while you are in a room with lights on and use 2 phones to talk, or yell loud.

[mtnman1]

I use a vacuum sweeper or a radio turned up loud so I can hear it from the circuit breaker box to tell when I flip that particular outlet circuit.

jim

Kyle Boatright wrote:

[ameijers]

(snip)

Oh, I quite understand your neighbor's reluctance. Some people are as touchy about their cars as cowboys were about their horse, and don't want touching them. Get hollered at a few times, and you get gunshy. Not to mention, some car alarms aren't smart enough to NOT arm with door open, and can still go off.

I have no idea what my neighbor's names or phone numbers even are. A wave while taking evening walks is the extent of our interaction.

aem sends...

[Bill Gill]

The trial and error way is about the only way. There are some good suggestions about ways to do it in the other responses.

One thing you might want to do is to make a sketch plan of your house, and mark all the outlets, lights and such on the sketch, with the breaker for each one. That way when you see a breaker labeled "Living Room" you can tell that it is the outlets on the East wall, not the lights.

Post the sketch in or adjacent to the breaker box and you can glance at it and know which breaker to turn off.

After that check to make sure it is dead before you start working on it.

Bill Gill

[Pop]

A breaker usually will serve more than one light/outlet. Turn on all the lights. Plug something into as many outlets as you can; nightlights, the like, radio, whatever. Make a sketch of the whole house showing lights/outlets. Turn off a breaker. Go see what's not working, mark it on the sktech. If an outlet doesn't have something plugged into it, find something to test it with to see if it's off. Usually lights and outlets aren't on the same breaker, but you never know. Now you can eliminate those lights/outlets from the next search. Turn that breaker back on, turn the next one off. Repeat. You'll quickly see a pattern to what's being turned off and after a few breakers the job gets pretty easy.

[Bob G.]

============== My Dad was an electrician and also used the method of just shorting out the circuit... no big deal., its quick and foolproof....

BUT honestly the last time I needed to find the correct breaker I went downstairs and the wife YELLED down the steps what light went out !

Bob G.

[mm]

The standard joke is that one has to live in NYC to be like this.

Quite a bit different story.

One morningt I wake up to see two men standing at the foot of my bed. "Who are you?" I ask. "Who are you?" they ask. "I live here", I said. About this time I noticed that they were police, And they took my word on the I-live-here part, and they explained a bit and left. I think I didn't even have to get out of bed, but I probably followed them to lock the door.

Of course what happened is that the night before I didn't latch my front door, and it blew open by morning.

Different next door neighbor saw it open, and he called the police.

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[Mark Lloyd]

I tested all the lights and receptacles, then flipped one breaker and checked again to see what isn't working.

[Mark Lloyd]

My method involves one walkaround per breaker, rather than one for every receptacle or light,