finding what breaker serves what circuit

[Mark Lloyd]

At least they do wave. I used to live in a big city where people usually ignored each other. And ignoring is better than shooting.

[Mark Lloyd]

Then you walk back and move the device to the next outlet. Repeat for EACH outlet. For mapping the whole panel, it'd be more walking than turning off each breaker (1 at a time) and checking the outlets.

In my house, the receptacle behind the refrigerator is on the same circuit as the main bathroom light. I never expected that.

[Mark Lloyd]

Either way would work. Starting with all on would leave things working most of the time.

I've seen 15A breakers, but this house doesn't have any. All the 120V breakers are 20A. Then there's the 240V breakers, 3 30A and 1 50A.

You may have receptacles and lights on the same breaker.

[Mark Lloyd]

And have a tester or small, portable appliance ready for testing receptacles not normally used.

Remember that modern electronic appliances (like that TV?) might not come on until you use THEIR controls.

I did it the other way - start with all on, then turn one off. Either would seem to work. The above could be an advantage of doing so.

I tried the "trial and error" method once. It was mostly error since the other person wasn't cooperative.

[Mark Lloyd]

I used such a map. One reason is to make sure I checked EVERY outlet.

The Living Room may be on 2 or 3 different circuits. It doesn't work to test one outlet, and assume the others are on the same circuit.

[Mark Lloyd]

The walk-through (for each breaker) gets easier, since you can eliminate the outlets you've already identified. Remember to check for receptacles where each side is wired separately.

[jimmy]

You can buy a circuit breaker tracer at a hardware store for about $30. It has two parts. One part plugs into the wall socket. The other part you place along the side of each circuit breaker until it indicates the breaker which controls that wall socket. For light fixtures which use screw-in bulbs, you can use an adapter.

If you're sell> The previous (original) owner of my house never labeled the circuit breakers

[John McGaw]

There are several different brands of tester which do what you describe. In fact your local borg probably has at least one of them hanging on the peg right now. This unit is one of the best but is rather expensive IIRC but I'll include the page for reference anyway:

[mm]

I'm sure you are sincerely posting what you read somewhere, but it's very unlikely that Franklin said this. It doesn't have the ring of something he said, or of any other writer of the 18th century.

It's not listed in Bartlett's Franklin Quotation (1919), I'm told,

And I'm also told that the word lunch did not exist until after Frankln. My Merriam Webster's dictionary confirms this and dates it at 1812.

A friend sends me a lot of email with false quotations, allegations of things that never happened, and allegations of things said or done that did happen but which were said or done by those of one political leaning, and attributed falsely to politicians or other well known people of an opposite leaning. It seems in my experience that when the person lived in the 20th century, it is alway Democrats and liberals about whom these false statements are made.

It hurts the reputation of Replublicans and conservatives that they are it seems always the bearer of these false statements, and it would help their reputation if they would verify this stuff before repeating it.

posted and mailed.

Sincerely,

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

[Goedjn]

Label the recepticals.

[Mark Lloyd]

With labels that don't fall off easily. Of course, you still have to figure out which labels to use where.

[Greg G]

You're doing it backwards. You don't need to find out which breaker serves a specific fixture, you need to find out which fixtures are served by each breaker. Turn off all the breakers except one. Walk around the house and see what's on. Repeat for each breaker.

Now, how do you test each fixture? First leave everything on that can be, like lights. For outlets, get one of those "pen" type testers that you don't need to plug in. HD has a cheap Greenlee device. It senses AC line voltage when its tip comes close to a live connection. I had to map out a junction box with about two dozen wires in it. I don't think I would have survived the experience if I'd had to disconnect (or *cut*) each wire to see which ones were live.

Greg Guarino

[Greg G]

Here it is:

[I.dont.read.email]

A radio is your friend. Plug it into each outlet in the house and find out which breaker turns it off. To check lights you need a helper to hollar when the light goes off. (unless you want to unscrew lightbulbs and put a screw in outlet in the socket to plug the radio).