Not everybody is familiar with breaker boxes and what they do. In fact, the average person doesn’t know much about breaker boxes at all. But if you don’t, its important to educate yourself. Such boxes help to prevent circuits from overloading and causing wire damage or electrical fires. In turn, they are essential to safety in any home. If you don’t know much about circuit breakers, we are here to help! Here is everything you could possibly want to know about circuit breakers, and what exactly 200 amp breakers are.
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You can find circuit breakers on your home’s electrical panel. These panels are what takes incoming electricity and redistributes it throughout the circuits in your home. Circuit breakers are essential to the safety of any home or building. Their job is to prevent circuits from overloading. In laymen’s terms, what does this mean? It means that anytime a home or building’s electrical wiring has too much electricity flowing through it, the breaker will cut the power. Power will remain cut until the problem gets solved. Without circuit breakers homes and buildings would be at much higher risk of potential fires, equipment failures, and other wiring concerns.
Before we can understand what a circuit breaker does and what 200 amp breakers are, we first need to better understand the concept of electricity. There are three major attributes that make up electricity; voltage, currents, and resistance.
Voltage, currents, and resistance all work together - and you cannot change one without causing change to another. So what does this have to do with your circuit breaker? Electricity in your home is initially received from a power plant. Inside your home, this electricity moves through circuits. One end of the circuit leads to the power plant, and the other leads to the ground. Whenever this circuit is closed, current can move through it. Electricity gets delivered to your home at a steady voltage, but all electrical appliances within your home provide a different amount of resistance. This resistance is what limits how much charge can flow through the circuit. For safety reasons, appliances are generally designed to keep a low current. If too much current were to pass through, the wires would generate too much heat, and a fire hazard would be the result.
This is how electricity should work in your home. But occasionally, things can go awry. In some cases, problems can cause resistance to minimize, pushing huge amounts of current through the wires. In turn, it becomes a safety hazard as the wires can overheat and create a fire. Luckily, it is cases like there where your circuit breaker will come to the rescue. When too much current is being pushed through, the breaker cuts off your circuit until the problem gets fixed.
Fuses are the simplest circuit protection devices. This is simply a thin wire that plugs into the circuit. When a circuit is closed, any charge that flows through it also flows through the wire or fuse. If the fuse gets too hot or there is too much current flowing through it, it disintegrates. This causes the circuit to open and prevents any further damage. Heres the problem with a fuse; you can only use it one time. If you blow a fuse, you have to replace it. This is why so many people are now moving to circuit breakers. They hold the same function as a fuse (opening when there is too much current), but you can use them more than once. How does it work? Unlike fuses, circuit breakers don’t “blow”, they “trip”. When this happens, all you need to do to restart them is simply flip a switch.
Now let’s talk about Amps. An Amp is a unit for measuring electricity. It is the standard unit for measuring how fast an electrical current flows. Each circuit breaker will have a maximum Ampage marked on its handle. This number represents the maximum Amp that can flow through the circuit before it trips. Before the 1950’s, 30 Amp fuse panels were the norm. Travel into the 1960’s, and 60 Amp panels became more widely preferred. Nowadays, 100 and 200 Amp breakers have become the standard. In fact, 100 Amps are the minimum allowed, while 200 Amp breakers are the preferred option.
There are 2 standard types of circuit breakers; single and double pole. Single poles probably make up most of the breakers within your box. They are single switches designed for delivering electricity to smaller appliances. Double poles are for operating the larger appliances like washers, dryers, and dishwashers. These resemble two switches joined together.
So, why should you choose breakers? Well, you could just choose a simple fuse. But why continue to replace fuses when you can just flick a switch? Circuit breakers are an important choice in any home because they control your safety. Breakers help to keep the electrical currents flowing properly in your home, shielding you and your family from electrical fires. In terms of Amps, 200 is the standard in most homes today.
Where can you buy 200 Amp breakers? At WireWorksCoInc.com. At Wire Works Co Inc, we can help you install electrical panel upgrades that will keep your home or business safe. With the help of our professionals, we can ensure your home never loses power or suffers the consequences associated with a bad electrical panel. Invest in your safety today!
