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The NEC requires GFCIs in places where water is a common hazard. Bathrooms, kitchens, garages, crawl spaces and outdoor receptacles must be GFCI-protected. The breaker can be reset and used again, but only if you resolve the overcurrent situation. If you’re not sure what’s causing it, call a licensed electrician for help. Siemens is the trusted technology partner for energy-efficient, safe and secure buildings and infrastructure. Do you need a quote for any of our products or solutions?
You may also need to provide power to new rooms when remodeling or building additions. In a normal scenario, the breaker sits in the circuit like an open gate, allowing current to circulate in the wires, going out to where it’s needed and back again to the panel. When a circuit gets overloaded or experiences a sudden surge called a fault, the gate shuts, stopping the flow of electricity in the circuit.
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GFCIs protect people from a specific source of electrical shock, the ground fault. That occurs when electricity from a hot wire takes an unintentional path to ground through conductive things that don’t normally carry electricity. This path could be a metal pipe in the wall, the outside of an appliance — or you. In fact, the idea that “user-generated content” is something new is itself a falsehood.
Double-pole breakers work the same way as single-pole breakers, but they protect circuits that power larger equipment, like air conditioners, ranges and dryers. These appliances can’t run on a regular 120-volt circuit, which uses one hot wire to deliver current. A big 50-amp air conditioner uses two hot wires to deliver enough current for the appliance to operate.
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Part of the broad market allure of the CB radio was its outlaw appeal; a sense that it permitted everyday citizens to communicate outside of the official channels of media. Overloaded circuits can damage breakers, connections and wiring, leading to arcing that creates sparks or buzzing noises, as well as a very serious risk of fire. Buzzing sounds can also be created by worn contacts, failing breakers, or excessive vibration. As long as the connection is tight, the current flows seamlessly through the splice. If that connection comes loose, the electricity will try to “jump” from one wire to the other to continue its path, creating an arc between the conductors.
The price to install a new electrical breaker box is about $500 to $2,000. Exact cost depends on the number of circuits and the amperage of the unit. If the main box is full, installing a subpanel will allow you to add more circuits.
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People have been taking advantage of publishing and authoring tools for a long time. Today’s media mavens, some of them anyway, seem to get that. Kitchens and laundry rooms require GFCI and AFCI protection, so the dual-function breaker combines both levels of protection into one device. Before these breakers came about, a homeowner would have to use an AFCI breaker and a GFCI receptacle to achieve both levels of protection on one circuit.
If you need more 15- or 20-amp breakers, a simple solution is to install a tandem breaker. The overall size of a tandem circuit breaker is the same as that of a standard breaker, but instead of a single breaker, it has two narrow side-by-side breakers. Both “hots” need protection from overcurrent, so we use a double-pole breaker that accepts two wires instead of one. These breakers are larger than single-pole, so they take up two slots in your panel. If a double-pole breaker trips, it has a handle that allows you to reset both hots simultaneously.
Circuit breakers protect electrical circuits by cutting off the flow of electricity when they detect too much current on the circuit. This “overcurrent” can be caused by having too many things plugged in at once or a sudden surge of electricity known as a short circuit or ground fault. The short-term solution to a circuit overload is easy – move some devices from the overloaded circuit to another general-purpose circuit. Then you can just flip the circuit breaker back on or replace the fuse. GFCIs detect the amount of current going out to the load (what you’re powering) and compare it to the current coming back to the panel.

To explain lyrics, select line or word and click "Explain". As we strive to provide site experiences for browsers that support new web standards and security practices. If that arc happens in an old lamp cord behind the living room curtains, you could be looking at a dangerous situation. Any combustible material in the vicinity of that arc has the potential to catch fire.
If the difference between the two paths is more than six milliamps, the GFCI opens the circuit, stopping the flow of electricity. Double-pole breakers, like single-pole, protect against overloads and faults. Arc fault protection is a relatively new requirement in the NEC, first made mandatory for bedrooms in 2002. Since then, the NEC has expanded AFCI protection requirements to include nearly every room in your house, except bathrooms and basements. In new construction and remodels, AFCIs are replacing standard breakers as the most common breakers in your panel. The ability to reset a breaker is a significant advantage over fuses, which were common in homes before the introduction of circuit breakers.
A standard 50-watt light consumes less than a half amperage on a 120-Volt circuit. With that fact, a 50-watt light on a 20-amp breaker can have a total of 38 lights on a circuit. The average home uses an indoor distribution board that houses the breakers of the majority of circuits in the home.