replacing a 15 amp breaker with a 20 amp

Replacing a 15 amp breaker with a 20 amp upgrade#

Short circuit-This happens when a “hot” wire (black) touches another hot wire or a “neutral” wire (white).Overloaded circuit-There are too many appliances on one circuit, or one of the appliances is pulling too many amps because it’s overheating.So let’s look at the… Causes of a tripping circuit breakerĪ circuit breaker usually trips because of one of these issues: So, if a bigger breaker won’t solve the tripping problem, what will? Well, it depends on what’s causing the breaker to trip. But it’s at the expense of damaging your home and putting your family at risk. Sure, the breaker is less likely to trip. See the problem? You’re creating a fire hazard! You’ll now have a circuit breaker that will allow up to 20 amps of electricity to wiring that is only rated to be safe up to 15 amps.

Replacing a 15 amp breaker with a 20 amp upgrade#

Now let’s say you decided to upgrade that 15-amp breaker to a 20-amp breaker. The tripping breaker is not the problem, but a sign that you have a problem somewhere that could cause your wires to overheat and start a fire. And if more than 15 amps flows through the circuit, the breaker trips. To protect all the wiring in that circuit, a 15-amp circuit breaker is installed. Luckily, your circuit breaker detects when there’s too much electrical flow and “trips” (breaks the circuit).įor example, let’s say you have a circuit with wiring rated to handle 15 amps. When too many amps flow through a circuit, the wires overheat and can catch surrounding materials (like insulation) on fire. Understanding your circuit breaker’s purposeĪll the electrical circuits in your home are rated to handle a certain amount of electrical flow (amps). Once we explain that, we’ll show you what’s causing that tripping problem. To help you understand why this is so dangerous, you need to know what the circuit breaker is for.

Otherwise, you may burn your house down via electrical fire. You should never just upgrade from a 15-amp breaker to a 20-amp one just because the current one is tripping. The answer: It’s possible, but not advisable without an electrician evaluating the situation. A question we see often is “Can I replace my 15-amp breaker with a 20-amp breaker? My smaller breaker keeps tripping!”