Basic Electric Advice: Circuit Breakers and Fuses

Electricity scares me. It does. I've tried to learn about it and understand the physics behind it, but my brain just can't wrap itself around electron streams making motors work. As far as I'm concerned, electricity is some sort of magic, and like all magic, it's just a little scary. So don't expect instructions on how to rewire a lamp (which isn't all that hard) or rewind an electric motor (which is). We're going to stay a little more basic, like how to turn the power to your place on and off.

Let's say you're boiling an egg, doing a load of dishes, and go into the bathroom to dry your hair. You turn on the hair dryer and bam! - all the lights go out.

Pretty common, actually.

You've blown a breaker (or a fuse, if your place is really old), and you'll need to reset the breaker (or replace the fuse) to get your power back.

Circuit breakers are built into every house and apartment to keep them from burning down. If you overload an electrical circuit, it heats up. Heat it up enough, and the insulation melts off. When that hot, uninsulated wire touches something, it can easily start a fire, and your house is toast.

Breakers keep electric circuits from getting overloaded. Your place will have several separate circuits - one for all the overhead lights, one for all the wall outlets, one for the stove, one for the dryer, etc. Each will have a separate breaker, which is designed to trip - and cut the power to that circuit - if it senses an overload.

In addition to those individual breakers, there will be one more - the main. The main circuit breaker cuts power to all the others when it trips - leaving your whole place dark.

If you blow an individual breaker, it means you've overloaded that circuit. You've plugged too many things into that line or you're trying to run an appliance that draws too much juice. I used to blow fuses in my old garage if I used the shop vac and air compressor at the same time. Try to figure out what is causing the overload before you reset the breaker. If you don't, it'll just trip again. My sister has an old house, and she can't vacuum and wash or dry clothes at the same time, and if her husband is using any of his power tools, turning on an extra light is dicey. They've learned what they can and can't do at the same time and live with it.

Because everything went dark, you can figure you blew your main breaker. Things that heat up - like electric stoves, dishwashers, and hair dryers - typically put a bigger strain on a circuit than things that don't. What you need to do now is make your way to your breaker box. It's usually in an out-of-the-way but still accessible location. In an apartment, it'll be inside the unit somewhere. In a utility room, an attached garage, or sometimes in a back hallway. It'll look like a small metal door about a foot wide and a foot and a half or so tall built into the wall at chest height. In a house or duplex, it'll typically be outside and looks like a shallow metal box screwed to your wall. It could be in a basement or utility room. When you've found it, open it.

If it's a breaker box, you'll see rows of switches. They look like light switches that toggle side to side. Fuse boxes, which are only in older homes and buildings, have round glass things that look like very small and heavy light bulbs - they're the fuses - screwed into receptacles. Breakers are easier.

When a circuit breaker trips, the switch itself loosens. It may not flip all the way to the "off " position, but it's no longer set in to "on" either. What you need to do is find the right breaker and toggle it off and then back on.

How do you find the right breaker? Hopefully, they're labeled (and you own a flashlight if it's dark). If not, it's trial and error. Flip them all off one by one, then back to the on position. Usually, you'll be able to feel the tripped breaker because it'll flip to "off " easier than the others. When you get the right one, whatever circuit went off will come back to life. If it was the main, all the lights and everything else will come back on. That includes the stove burner you had on originally, so unless you want your hard-boiled eggs to explode, make sure to turn stuff off.

If you have fuses, shine your flashlight on each one. Inside the glass fuse you'll see a metal strip. If the fuse is good, you'll see a solid strip. When a fuse blows, that strip melts, and you'll see a gap and often a little smoke on the glass. Unscrew the fuse, and replace it with one exactly the same. The fuse will be labeled - 15 amps, 20 amps, something like that. Make sure to put the same type of fuse back in. Some people who aren't as smart as they think they are put a bigger fuse in "so they won't blow it again," replacing a 20-amp fuse with a 30. And while that may keep the fuse from blowing, it may also burn your duplex down. Breakers and fuses are protecting you when they blow. I know it's annoying, but be thankful they did.

Let's say you're about to vacuum, and you plug your vacuum in and the outlet starts sparking and smoking and doing all kinds of stuff that looks like electricity gone bad. In this case, you want to yank the cord out and then throw the breakers as soon as you can. Same is true if it's your air conditioner or electric stove or water heater that's acting up. The idea is that cutting off the power at the breaker will stop the flow of electricity to the problem outlet or appliance and prevent a fire. If a fire has already started, cutting off the power won't stop it. A fire extinguisher or the local fire department needs to do that.

If you need to cut power to a circuit in your house, just push the breaker switch to off. If your breakers aren't labeled and it's an emergency, flip the main off or just flip all of them off. If your breakers aren't labeled, there's no law that says you can't be the one to do it. Go through them one at a time on some Sunday when you're bored, and write what they control next to each switch.)

Beyond that, if anything electrical goes wrong, call the landlord or a professional electrician.