wrote in message
oups.com...
I want to make sure I've got this right:
I have a 20-year old house with a Cutler-Hammer/Eaton circuit breaker
box.
All regular circuits are 20 amps.
Stove/oven, dryer, and AC are 30 and 40 and 60 amps.
I have one 20 amp GFCI breaker on the box that goes to all the bathroom
receptacles and all the outdoor receptacles. Each receptacle has two
plugs, for a total of 14 plugs on the one breaker.
At Christmastime, when my outdoor Christmas lights are plugged into two
outdoor receptacles, the circuit trips when my wife runs her hair
dryer.
The black wire coming out of the circuit box says 600V and 12/2 and
other things, but no other numbers are close to 12.
The white wire ground coming out of the circuit box says 600V and 14/2
and other things, but no other numbers are close to 14.
So I have 12 and 14 gauge wiring, right?
I can buy a device at Radio Shack/Lowe's/whatever for maybe $14.95
that I hook up to the wire and get back the gauge size, right?
I want to go up to a 30-amp breaker so my Christmas lights don't trip
it, but my wiring needs to be upgraded to all the bathrooms and outdoor
receptacles to safely do so, right?
One of the outdoor receptacles is near the circuit breaker box. I
could hire an electrician to add a circuit on the box just for that
receptacle, and perhaps have him convert the receptacle into a
four-plug or eight-plug one, and he would bill me for approximately
$500, right?
I'm going to have to cut down on my Christmas lights or have my wife
cut her hair short, because $500 is too much to pay just to have as
many Christmas lights as I want each year, right?


The simple safe solution is to get the circuit with the hair dryer as a
single outlet 20 amp breaker. I am fairly sure that a 20 amp dedicated
circuit to the bath room is required by the current code.

Or add a separate circuit for you Xmas lights.

No matter what you might think you have seen at RS or elsewhere, under no
circumstances should you replace a 20 amp breaker with a 30 amp breaker.


--
Colbyt
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