Tripping the breaker/ to many plugs

[The endler guy]

Has anyone ever had the problem of two many plugs/ electrical devices tripping the breaker/ creating a fire hazard. If so please give an outline of how much you had

[knee]

On 2/21/2023 at 4:14 PM, Pepere said:

If you are using too many watts for the circuit you will trip it.  The number of plugs is not the issue.

 

if the breaker is 15 amp, you have roughly 1,500 watts available.  20 watt gives you 2000 roughly.

 

the items plugged in the outlet near your tank might not be the only outlet on the circuit…

 

everything plugged into the circuit should have a plate telling you the wattage.  Add them up and see what they come up to.

 

Alternatively you might have a ground fault circuit and or Arc Fault in which case it is not the breaker tripping but a test reset button tripping.  If you have an arc fault or ground fault device tripping you need to find out why and fix it…

What about for heaters? I've always plugged them directly into the wall but can I get away with plugging them on a power strip?

[nabokovfan87]

There is likely a load balance issue. We have 3-4 rooms chained on the same breaker. Potentially you can have an electrician tell you the zones or review things in your house with you and let you know your options. Have a GFCI in the room with the tank on its own GFCI breaker is a great fix and will eliminate issues for you.

Something to look into.

I ran into issues here when I had the tank on, heaters running, and then we had floor heaters in the next two rooms.

[TheSwissAquarist]

We've learned how to calculate wattage/fuses at school; but frankly, I'm too scared to try and calculate what my aquariums use. 3 lights, heaters, and filters run off 1 plug socket. 😬

[jwcarlson]

On 2/21/2023 at 6:06 PM, The endler guy said:

Has anyone ever had the problem of two many plugs/ electrical devices tripping the breaker/ creating a fire hazard. If so please give an outline of how much you had

Pepere outlined it well above.  It all comes down to what you've got on the circuit.  Unless you have a lot of stuff on the same circuit, most tank situations are OK.  There's not much that draws a ton of current in the hobby outside of heating.  Some houses have extremely ill-thought-out wiring where something silly like every light in the house is on the same circuit or three bedrooms are on the same circuit.  So it could be that your aquarium load isn't too high, but when someone vacuums and then your heater kicks on in the middle... it pops.

You should not be doing anything where you're using a bunch of outlet splitters to run, say, 3-4 heaters on the same, single outlet or something like that.  If outlets are an issue, get a decent quality power strip.  Unfortunately, there's no magic formula for when there's going to be an issue.  You can probably run 500+ normal air pumps on an average circuit.  But a few big heaters will trip it.

Here's a picture of my aging barrel/preheat setup if it helps you visualize anything.  There's more load on it now because there's a couple of 10 gallon tanks down there, but most everything on the main power strip (it's a wifi strip, with local buttons to turn them on off individually) is something I need on only temporarily for pumping water or preheating (I don't always run the heaters, I know about how many kilowatts it takes to heat the 65 gallons up to tank temp, so I only turn it on as needed).  The temperature controllers on the right each control one of the outlets in that set there below them, the biggest load they'd see is two 250-300 watt heaters in the barrels.  They're powered by the two plugs to the right on the wifi strip so that I can turn them on/off automatically to avoid using more energy than needed and having to remember to turn heat on.  And occasionally if I'm out of town for a few days, I'll be able to set them to turn on so that the water is ready to go when I get home.  Then there's a pump that I have semi-temporarily hooked up to hoses and can pump water anywhere in the house basically.  And I can turn it on/off from my phone so I'm not having to run around.  

Edited February 22, 2023 by jwcarlson

[PlaneFishGuy]

Another thing to consider is not all power strips have surge protection - something to consider if your plugging in a lot of expensive gear on the same circuit and not sure about the circuits ability to handle the load. I've seen this confusion before in other electronics venues where people thought they were protected....

[Guppysnail]

On 2/22/2023 at 8:33 AM, jwcarlson said:

Some houses have extremely ill-thought-out wiring where something silly like every light in the house is on the same circuit or three bedrooms are on the same circuit. 

I had a switch go bad in my living room. 1 plug or light in every room on both levels of my home were found wired to one breaker. 🤨. My breaker unit was labeled entirely incorrectly. Each breaker had been labeled a room. Every breaker ended up controlling at least 1 thing I. Each room. WHO DOES THAT! 😣

[jwcarlson]

On 2/22/2023 at 8:28 AM, Guppysnail said:

I had a switch go bad in my living room. 1 plug or light in every room on both levels of my home were found wired to one breaker. 🤨. My breaker unit was labeled entirely incorrectly. Each breaker had been labeled a room. Every breaker ended up controlling at least 1 thing I. Each room. WHO DOES THAT! 😣

You're describing a hellscape. 😄

I, at one point, had everything mapped out for my circuits and lost the paper like an idiot.  Last time I had all the power off (putting in that aging barrel setup, actually).  I turned one breaker on at a time and wanted my wife to go around and tell me what was functional... she "didn't get" what she was supposed to do.  lol

I've been thinking about doing it this Friday.  I'm off and the wife/kids will be at school.  I won't have any help, but what help would they really be? 😄  Just me and the dogs... and the fish.

[Guppysnail]

On 2/22/2023 at 11:17 AM, jwcarlson said:

You're describing a hellscape. 😄

I, at one point, had everything mapped out for my circuits and lost the paper like an idiot.  Last time I had all the power off (putting in that aging barrel setup, actually).  I turned one breaker on at a time and wanted my wife to go around and tell me what was functional... she "didn't get" what she was supposed to do.  lol

I've been thinking about doing it this Friday.  I'm off and the wife/kids will be at school.  I won't have any help, but what help would they really be? 😄  Just me and the dogs... and the fish.

The electrician that fixed my switch had a gizmo to trace lines with his partner. He offered to do it but started and realized my house was a wire bowl of spaghetti. He apologized and said if I wanted it mapped I actually had to pay and book another appointment because it would take awhile. I said I’ve dealt with it for over 20 years and it wasn’t that important 🤣

[jwcarlson]

If you're not really doing any electrical work, I'd argue it's not particularly important.  It is nice to know if a breaker trips what could have caused it based on what's on the circuit.  They do make some handy tools to help, but yeah if you've got a more avant-garde scheme they're not going to help much.  Whoever did our house was pretty logical and everything had made sense.  Everything that the previous owner touched is VERY obvious and has been a pain.  I've replaced all the outlets/switches and added GFCI and there's been a few interesting discoveries.  The two electrical things he did were the sink disposal, took me awhile to sort out, it was popping the GFCI.  And he added a three way switch in the garage for the lights, but very clearly didn't do anything right because it's actually two switches in parallel that both need to be on.  Which was funny when my wife first found it and flipped it, I didn't even know it existed until trying to figure it out for quite some time she says "do you think maybe that other switch is doing it?" ha

I wonder if your situation isn't something made quite custom for the builder or something that is quite old before our houses were so electrified and so when they added additional things over the years it ended up being a mess?  I would guess that if some of us built a brand new house we might be pretty specific about some of the electrical needs based on our hobbies.  And then someone buys the house 2-3 owners down the road and 100 years later they're going to be REALLLY confused!

[Guppysnail]

On 2/22/2023 at 11:56 AM, jwcarlson said:

something that is quite old before

1996 build. A lot of custom stuff by previous owner when they finished the basement 

[The endler guy]

On 2/22/2023 at 11:56 AM, jwcarlson said:

If you're not really doing any electrical work, I'd argue it's not particularly important.  It is nice to know if a breaker trips what could have caused it based on what's on the circuit.  They do make some handy tools to help, but yeah if you've got a more avant-garde scheme they're not going to help much.  Whoever did our house was pretty logical and everything had made sense.  Everything that the previous owner touched is VERY obvious and has been a pain.  I've replaced all the outlets/switches and added GFCI and there's been a few interesting discoveries.  The two electrical things he did were the sink disposal, took me awhile to sort out, it was popping the GFCI.  And he added a three way switch in the garage for the lights, but very clearly didn't do anything right because it's actually two switches in parallel that both need to be on.  Which was funny when my wife first found it and flipped it, I didn't even know it existed until trying to figure it out for quite some time she says "do you think maybe that other switch is doing it?" ha

I wonder if your situation isn't something made quite custom for the builder or something that is quite old before our houses were so electrified and so when they added additional things over the years it ended up being a mess?  I would guess that if some of us built a brand new house we might be pretty specific about some of the electrical needs based on our hobbies.  And then someone buys the house 2-3 owners down the road and 100 years later they're going to be REALLLY confused!

My parents are worried because I have my tank in my room (among other appliances) and want a snake. And they are saying if I were to get one (although that seems unlikely now) I wouldn’t be able to have it in my room because it would be too much electricity stuff (my dad was an architect so i assume he knows his stuff)

[billango]

On 2/22/2023 at 10:58 AM, The endler guy said:

My parents are worried because I have my tank in my room (among other appliances) and want a snake. And they are saying if I were to get one (although that seems unlikely now) I wouldn’t be able to have it in my room because it would be too much electricity stuff (my dad was an architect so i assume he knows his stuff)

I don't think it has been mentioned yet what your setup is but you could probably estimate how many watts you are using between your lights and heaters and such. You'd also have to take into account what else in on the same circuit whether that's your bathroom or other rooms on that floor and whats being used on that. Aquarium stuff isn't really too much on it's own. Maybe 100-200 watt heater for a tank, 30-50 watts for a light, etc. A reptile heat light might be 75-150 watts. But by comparison my microwave uses 1100 watts and my computer can use 700 watts (not on the same circuit) or so. So if someone uses a beefy computer or a hairdryer or a space heater or something on the same circuit, then you'll have to take that into account more, but you should be able to get a rough estimate and see what you end up at. 

[Andy's Fish Den]

On 2/22/2023 at 11:34 AM, Guppysnail said:

The electrician that fixed my switch had a gizmo to trace lines with his partner. He offered to do it but started and realized my house was a wire bowl of spaghetti. He apologized and said if I wanted it mapped I actually had to pay and book another appointment because it would take awhile. I said I’ve dealt with it for over 20 years and it wasn’t that important 🤣

You can get a kit that is two pieces, one you plug into a receptacle and the other go to the breaker box and hold it by each breaker and it will sense which breaker is getting the signal from the little thing you plugged into the outlet. 

When we put an addition with basement on our house almost ten years ago, I walked through with the electrician and told him exactly what I wanted and where I wanted stuff. There are requirements for code, but I made sure that each room's outlets are on their own circuit, and in the basement I had them do six separate 20 amp circuits, because I knew I would have a fridge and dehumidifier down there and maybe a freezer, along with other stuff, and I would have plenty of power for my fish room. Another things i have done in this house, as well as the previous one I lived in, I went around and on the back of the cover plates for the outlets and switches, I wrote the breaker number so it would be easy for myself or anyone else in the future to find. 

[Guppysnail]

On 2/23/2023 at 11:28 AM, Andy's Fish Den said:

You can get a kit that is two pieces, one you plug into a receptacle and the other go to the breaker box and hold it by each breaker and it will sense which breaker is getting the signal from the little thing you plugged into the outlet. 

When we put an addition with basement on our house almost ten years ago, I walked through with the electrician and told him exactly what I wanted and where I wanted stuff. There are requirements for code, but I made sure that each room's outlets are on their own circuit, and in the basement I had them do six separate 20 amp circuits, because I knew I would have a fridge and dehumidifier down there and maybe a freezer, along with other stuff, and I would have plenty of power for my fish room. Another things i have done in this house, as well as the previous one I lived in, I went around and on the back of the cover plates for the outlets and switches, I wrote the breaker number so it would be easy for myself or anyone else in the future to find. 

My hubby does not know it yet but he is most likely not going to be a fan of yours right now. This just went on his Honey-do list 🤣