I was wondering why the Kill-A-Watt wattmeter that I normally leave things in the room plugged into was beeping. Turned out that having an electric kettle and a space heater both on on a circuit were enough to drive the power usage over the 1800W that a normal US household circuit can provide, and that apparently the thing beeps in that case. It let me flip off the kettle before the circuit breaker flipped, which was nice.
I think I might look into a low-wattage, vacuum-insulated (to help compensate for the fact that the heat will have to be put into the water over a longer period of time) kettle.
A space heater will bring a standard US residential home circuit to max capacity.
If a circuit is currently being used to run a space heater, youd be very wise to unplug everything else from that circuit.
Thank you for reminding me that I need to get heavier breakers on every circuit in my house.
that’s a bad idea if you don’t upgrade wiring too.
But I want to start a fire inside of my walls :(
A space heater is limited in its heat production to the amount of power that the circuit can deliver via electricity. Unless, of course, you use that electric power as a starter to release some of the stored chemical energy of the items in your home. At that point you can continue to produce light and heat even after shutting off the electrical power.
Well yes but the jackets of wires rated for only 15amp will melt and short inside your walls if you try to pull 20 amps through them
that’s just an unfortunate side effect of keeping yourself warm in these trying times
Oh, I’ll probably have to upgrade wiring too. Unfortunately what’s in my budget is probably single-strand 22-gauge aluminum core, if I’m lucky.
then hold on until you can do the work. electrical fires are nasty and properly sized breakers to your wiring is a major part of making it safe.
If it was a kitchen outlet, it may have been a 20A (2400 watt) circuit. Still, a kettle and space heater at the same time would still have been stressing that.
Did it show you the combined wattage or max out at 1800?
If it was a kitchen outlet, it may have been a 20A (2400 watt) circui
Nah, this was a 15 amp circuit, though that’s a fair point.
Did it show you the combined wattage
It showed something like 2400W, IIRC, but the meter itself is only rated to something like 1900 W (well, VA), so it may not have been a perfectly-accurate reading.
goes back to try each independently, and both together
With both on, and the other load, it shows about 2300W in total load for the circuit.
There’s about 200W of other load on the circuit.
The heater alone — listed as being 800W, if I remember aright – bumps it up by 700W alone.
The kettle bumps it up by 1300W alone. So it might have been ~100W off at that point, but it was correct that it was over what the circuit could do.
Just stick a penny in the fuse and you’re golden.
I was working at a large identifiable site when they had a power failure. In the worst possible spot, a blown fuse nuked the feed below the gennies and the transfer switch, and basically the entire place was dark.
It shouldn’t be dark.
No one knew this fuse was down there, no one had a spare, it’s from like 1960.
So we have a temporary fuse and the one guy needs a new screwdriver. I expect it’ll be temporary - since the power on the way in is conditioned - until they decom the site in about 20 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)
In late 2025, the Mint halted the production of pennies for circulation, largely due to cost.[8][9]
They’re antiques now! Can’t expend them on such mundane uses!
I have an Emporia Vue CT monitor that watches all my lines right at the box. IDK about newer versions, but the old version could be hacked so you don’t have to use their shitty app.
I’m pretty sure both of those devices are intended to be the sole device on a circuit. It’s the only way you can get enough power for them.
The instructions should note this, but who reads those? Haha
I run into this in my kitchen (which was built before code required microwave on its own circuit).
I can run either the espresso machine (1100w) or the toaster oven (300w) and microwave (1000w) simultaneously. If I forget and run all 3 it will blow the breaker.
Fortunately my morning routine is coffee first, then use the toaster oven, then microwave. I only found out they were all on the same circuit by changing my routine.
Neat the kill-a-watt caught this for you.
I can run either the espresso machine (1100w) or the toaster oven (300w) and microwave (1000w) simultaneously. If I forget and run all 3 it will blow the breaker.
Hey, guess how I found out my office with all my computers was on the same circuit powering the air-fryer we had on the patio? This was our last place, too, a 2018-build high-rise.
That is an insanely Easy-Bake Oven-ass toaster oven if it’s only 300W…
Apparently the original Easy-Bake Oven was 200W, then dropped to 100W, then moved to some sort of dedicated heating element.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy-Bake_Oven
The original Kenner Easy-Bake Oven was heated by two 100-watt incandescent light bulbs, one above the food tray and one below.
The idea was that the cake would bake more quickly and evenly if heated from both sides. Later models used only one bulb, leveraging convection from better interior heating dynamics to achieve the same results.
In 2011, the last version to use a 100-watt incandescent light bulb was replaced by a new version with a dedicated heating element, named the Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven. The replacement was due to the availability of alternatives to the incandescent light bulbs that heated previous versions of the Easy-Bake Oven.[23] It was feared that newer lamp requirements would render all models that used light bulbs as their heating elements obsolete because lamps would no longer be available. (The company never provided initial or replacement bulbs.)[24][25]
investigates
Looks like the heating-element-based variant is still 100W:
https://consumercare.hasbro.com/api/download/E6120_en-us
ELECTRICAL REQUIREMENTS:120 Volts AC only – 60 Hz. 100 Watts
I’ve tripped my breaker doing stuff like that.
