My daughter wants to install a window type A/C in two different rooms in her home. She has no idea if the units she's looking at, which draw 4.9 amps (115v), would overload any particular circuit. Without mapping the circuits, is there any way to know, other than plugging the unit in?
Do you have a lamp or two you could plug into the same outlets she'd use for the air conditioners? I'd be curious if both outlets turn off and on by flipping a single circuit breaker.
Well, you could take a small lamp, plug it in one room where that a/c would be, turn it on, then flip circuit breakers until light goes out, to see which circuit this room is on.
Then do same in other room. If rooms are on separate breaker/circuits, then it should be OK (as long as their are no other high wattage items in these rooms.)
Circuits feeding bedrooms are usually 15 Amp.
Dean Hoffman snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
I do. I won't be seeing my daughter until next week.
The house is old, and has a combination of both knob and tube and romex wiring. The service panel was upgraded three years ago. Don't know if only larger breakers replaced smaller breakers, or if redistribution of circutis was done. Walls were taken out to make rooms larger. Much of the romex is 12ga and not 14ga. Difficult to work with.
It's hot out. AC is good. I'd install them both and if any fuse blows, I'd worry about it then.
Does she have fuses or circuit breakers. If circuit breakers, the house is not what I would call old.
If fuses, how old is the house?
Each circuit carries 15 amps. Two ACs like yours is 9.8 amps, though it probably uses more when it starts. They probably won't start at the same time and if they do, and if it blows the fuse, replace the fuse or reset the breaker.
If it blows just when she's running them, find out what else is on the same circuit, stop using it, or run it off of an extension cord from a receptacle that's on another circuit.
If the two ACs won't be on the same circuit, the chances of blowing a fuse are very very low, but the remedy is the same.
If this all won't work, buy 50,000 cubic feet of cold air and replace it as it is used up.
If these are on new 20a circuits (12ga) I wouldn't be too concerned with 5a loads.
Drawing only 10 amps total if there is not much of a load on the circuit it may not matter.
The only other simple way I know of is put a clamp on amp meter at the breaker box and cut the AC off and on and see if they are on the same circuit or not. Which I would guess that you are not going to pull the cover off.
I think someone mentioned it, but you could take two lamps, radios or most anything and plug into the two outlets and cut the breakers off one at a time and see if everything goes off or just one goes off at a time.
The only 15A circuits in my house are the lighting supplies . Yeah , it's new construction and I'm anal , but every outlet circuit is on a
20A breaker , and there are no more than 6 outlets on any circuit . Two exceptions , and both are out in the shop on a sub panel . I have 30A breakers on the camper power supply and on the outlet for the milling machine . I'd lots rather have excess capacity than be checking breakers all the time .
Map the circuits - it's easy with a plug-in radio - - plug it in - turn up the volume so you can hear it from the fuse panel - flip breakers. If the 2 desired receptacles are on different circuits - you're good-to-go. If they are on the same circuit - perhaps a nearby receptacle is on a separate breaker and a good heavy extension cord will work. John T.
Circuits in North America are NEVER LESS THAN 15 amps
NEVER run AC on an extention cord
Many say that, however if using a 14 or 12 gauge wire and not over 15 feet or so long there is no problem, especially if it is a small unit like the one that draws 5 amps. The old never run exteniton cord is an leftover from when people would use 16 or 18 gauge cords and the units used much more current.
On EVERY window or portable AC unit you buy today it has a warning on the plug and in the manual to NEVER use an extention cord.
I didn't say that. I was talking about "what else is on the same circuit", probably lamps, television, computer, not about the AC.
Sure a CYA because people would use lamp cord. A proper appliance extension is the same as the wire in the wall and can carry the load.
They should also put "dont use this more than a half mile from the power company"
Yet these are readily available:
Just about like almost everything you buy will have a warning because of California that it may cause cancer.
Most every gun will come with a warning not to use reloaded ammo either. There are millions of rounds that are reloaded every year. Many drugs will come with all kinds of warnings but people take them all the time.
Same here - all receptacle circuits are 20A. Built in 1970.
14 gauge. I guess that's okay if it makea good connections at the ends.
ON the opposite topic, I lived in Brooklyn NY in what had been a luxury building when built in 1930, complete with switchboard operator, doorman/elevator operator, concierge in the basement to take deliveries.
By 1970 all those employees were gone but it still had some of the original tenants, including Miss Tieke, who was in her 80's. She had a grandfather clock and she turned of the chiming every night. But the landlady, whose husband had died, decided to move to Florida and she sold the building to someone who economized, to say the least.
Long story short, sometimes we were short of heat so I had a small thousand-watt heater plugged into the only receptacle in my room. I lived in the maid's room off the kitchen, and it had only one receptacle.
Woke up one morning to see flames coming up from the hard-rubber plug, 1 to 2 inches. I immediately reached for the cord to unplug it and the girl next to me keeps pulling my arm back. I don't know why, my hand was still 2 feet from the flame. After 3 or 4 tries I overpowered her and the fire went out within 3 or 4 seconds.
It had many coats of paint over the receptacle so I didn't try to replace it, but I never used a heater again.
I imagine that you still have that pesky tag on your mattress that states "Do not remove under penalty of law."
Corporate lawyers enjoy creating warning labels.
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