/diy/ - Do It Yourself

As long as no one has fucked with it too much, it can handle whatever it's labelled for.

Fuses blow and breakers trip based on amps. Watts is a measure of work. Amps is a measure of electric charge moving from one point to another. Breakres and fuses have volts written on them, but that's a measure of when they're going to stop working. That might be in exciting and unpredictable ways, though they usually make a decent attempt at making them fail safely. If you put 1kv at .1 amp across a switch rated for 200v and 5 amps, the 1kv will still make the switch stop working right because it won't be able to break the connection, and its insulation might fail and run into your finger when you try to flip it. Then if your current source is limited or not, even more exciting things can happen.

Tldr; there's no cause for concern, it's annoying your landlord isn't getting you a replcaement fuse apparently? And that is probably a lease violation and he should really do it. You could also hop down to the home store and buy a fuse or fuse wire or whatever for $5 and do it yourself. Match it to whatever it says on the panel

>>780587
Dont use the toaster and the microwave at the same time.

Its all about the amps nigga, in a 1940s house they use fuses. Some of them fuses cost like 5$ a pop.
They are probably 15a fuses.

>>780598
Okay, so it the heater and vacuum probably blew the fuse because they exceeded the max amps.
I think he's replaced the fuse, it's just that he refuses to tell me the location of the fusebox, my guess is that it's in the basement of the house, which always has a padlock on it. I wish he'd just let me fix it myself.

When I told him what happened, he just got irate and told me that I was only allowed to have two things plugged in to an outlet at a time, and "no power strips allowed" because the place has pre-1940's wiring and it's "really complicated electric stuff" and I should stop being a "little technician".

I added up all the watts of my entertainment center and it's below 15, so I really don't think it should be causing an issue. It's just frustrating to me because he seems to be saying these things out of his own ignorance and what he's asking of me is ridiculous, because I can't keep my internet service going and have a TV plugged in at the same time.

>>780598
yes, these things.
Landlord should really let you see your own breaker box/fuse panel (it really should be refit for breakers these days). If they have properly maintained it there is nothing that will be damaged by overloading a circuit, just a fuse to replace or breaker to flip.

And if you have a heater it might not be rated in Amps (though a vacuum would be, usually) so look for Watts.
Wattage Divided By Voltage Equals Amperage*

>* "power factor" and other things come into play but for a simple resistance heater the simple equation works.

1500 watt heater times 120volt supply equals 12.5 amps. That is already most of what you should expect a 15amp breaker to handle if they wiring is really old. Just be careful.

And there is certainly an upper limit for the amps you can push through a socket but the breaker or fuse is most likely to cut the circuit first. When a socket does get burned up it often turns out that there was a bad connection being made inside. Arcing = lots of heat and burned brown sockets or maybe a fire. There are "arc-fault" breakers on the market that trip when there is arcing for exactly this reason. Either code required or suggested for new construction.

>>780603
Ignorant landlords who maintain things poorly is a thing. Ideally an apartment, even one renovated into a house, has it's own panel for exactly this reason (and for better electrical spending tracking)

your ability to have anything done about this depends on your area, your lease and unknown other factors. It's definitely shitty and a little bit shifty.

>>780603
You means amps.

Your entertainment center is probably fine unless you got some retardedly loud stereo or are a CRT enthusiast.

You can't 'fix' the fuse box. It kept your land lord's house from burning down so it is functioning correctly. The only way to increase your available power would be to drop a couple hundred bucks on an electrician to come and run a new line. Since it's not your house, I can't think of any way you could legally work on the electric. You will fuck it up and your landlord will get you to pay for a new house after it burns down because you fucked it up.

the fuse box is probably locked up because he's done a visit and found some asshole tenant stuck a penny in there or even just higher than rated fuses.

>>780606
research tenants rights in your area. There may be specific language about interruption of essential services, like electricity. Landlord's failure to provide that service in a stable manner (unreliable wiring, long delays for required service like resetting/replacing a breaker or fuse) may be actionable but you will have an uphill battle.

>>780608
I actually am a CRT enthusiast, I've got a 27 in. Trinitron WEGA, lol. Am I in trouble?
>>780611
I wouldn't want to bring up anything against him, he's being timely enough and I don't think there's much of a case, he's just acting kind of intrusive, and I don't think I should be legally bound to jump through hoops to satisfy him electrically when I can just learn how to not blow fuses. I appreciate your concern though.

>>780615
Just checked the manual, and it looks like it's only 1A for the TV, so nevermind, even that's not a big contribution. I'd plan to not load the circuits more than 10A total, if you go around and you're only using 10A, then there might be a problem.

without access to the fuse panel it'll be a bit of a trick to figure out what's one circuit and what's not. Pretty much need to ask the landlord what outlets are on different circuits and then balance your stuff on them.

>>780615
Oh he has a case... and what is he hiding in the locked basement anyway???

>>780620
Half of the outlets in the house and the lights stopped working when the fuse blew, so I assume that they were all on the same circuit.

The circuit that blew has
5 18w CFL bulbs
a fridge that doesn't appear to be energy-star rated
a CRT
router and modem
wii, ps3, and a few other retro consoles I doubt would be on at the same time

The other circuit has
one CFL
the bathroom's fan
a microwave
my battlestation and monitor
a small printer
a box fan
sometimes portable devices are plugged in

I don't know if the heating is on the second circuit or not, but I would assume it's on its own circuit

If I'm understanding things right I think that because the fridge is kind of inefficient, it has the biggest presence on circuit 1. Ordinarily I've been able to run the heater and the TV at the same time, but the vacuum took it over the edge, so I think I should be okay as long as I don't have the heater going. I probably have to be more careful plugging things in the circuit 1 as opposed to circuit 2.

... which is really too bad, because I was planning on building a kotatsu table. The one I'm looking at is 500w, which as i understand is less powerful than your standard standing heater at 1500w

i dunno do you think I can get away with it?

>>780603
>it's "really complicated electric stuff" and I should stop being a "little technician".

Jesus my douchimeter is just giving me an "OL" reading right now.

Ditch this fool the second you can.

I think the freezer in the locked basement with body parts in it is pulling too much current.

>>780603
>heater
at least 10 A
>vacuum
at least 10 A
>exceeded the max amps
yep

>>780587
Get an electrician round.

Find a better landlord. Don't ever stick with a bad one long enough that it becomes difficult to move out. You want to find a good one that you can stick with for a long time.