These days people own more electronic equipment than as they find themselves connected to home entertainment systems, computers, video game consoles and mobile devices and chargers, in addition to each of the electronic equipment of years ago. If you end up running out of power capacity on your electrical circuits, you may want to add more circuits to serve your property. In addition to preparation and wiring the circuits themselves, you’ll need to join these circuits to circuit breakers on the key electrical service panel.
Assess your current capacity at the key electrical service panel. You need to see quite a few of 15-amp and 20-amp circuit breakers already installed. These protect your present circuits. In several cases there’ll be extra slots in which no breakers are installed. That is where any additional circuit breakers goes.
Assess the available power source at the main service panel. This amount is recorded in amps. Many service panels are configured to receive between 150 and 400 amps of current.
Add up the current ratings on each of the present circuit breakers. Compare this amount to the total available power source. When the available power is higher than the highest power of all circuits presently in use, then you can install one or more additional circuit breakers with no further ado. Contact your electric utility if there is no spare power left over, and ask it to supply you a much larger power source. Get permission from your landlord, if you are renting. Even with the landlord’s consent, raising the power source and expanding the major panel adds considerable time and expense to the project.
Buy as many circuit designs as you plan to install. Use 20-amp circuit breakers, because these enable fuller loads on a particular circuit. Only buy 15-amp breakers if you understand your new circuit will only have light total loads.
Wire your new circuit, including any sockets, switch boxes and junction boxes, prior to connecting it to the circuit breaker. Use 12-gauge electrical conduit using black-insulated hot cable, white-insulated neutral wire and bare or green-insulated floor cable. Depending upon your location, you may need to receive your wiring job inspected and approved by an electrician. It is a fantastic idea to do that anyway just to be sure of the integrity of your work.
Call and have your electrical utility cut the power for your main service panel.
Install the circuit breaker(s) to the support panel per the instructions supplied with the circuit breaker packing. Connect hot to warm, neutral to neutral and earth to earth, and confirm that all your connections are secure and correct.
Telephone the electrical utility to restore power.
Test the new circuit using a multimeter to be certain it is functioning properly. Do this before plugging any apparatus into the circuit.