Overloaded Circuits for Dummies - the Freelance Files MMCXXXIII

overloads aren't short circuits

For some reason, the average person simply doesn't understand the electricity that powers almost everything in the modern home. We blame educational institutions that award "degrees" in film studies and art history without actually requiring that the recipient understand the world around us. We don't think it's necessary to be able to derive Ohm's Law or define the coulomb, but being able to discuss the basics would certainly help a person figure out what's going on when there's a problem. Into that breach, unfortunately, eHow.com's Karl Wallulis vaulted back in 2015 with the post, "How to Check for an Electrical Circuit Overload" (now living at Hunker.com).

In order to authoritatively discuss the question, it would help to understand just what this "overload" thing is. Simply stated, an electrical overload occurs when the total current in a circuit exceeds the load for which the circuit was designed. Current is measured in amperes ("amps") and household circuits are generally designed to carry 15 or 20 amps. Exceed that amount, and the wiring could overheat, which creates a fire hazard. A 15-amp circuit is overloaded if the wattage drawn by all devices in the circuit exceeds 1800 watts, at which time a circuit breaker will "trip" or a fuse will "blow" to prevent a fire.

Wallulis, who seemed to think that each house has an "electrical grid," talked around circuit breakers and fuses quite a bit. For this post, Karl used a reference about "troubleshooting home electrical problems." Karl's big problem, however, was that he misread the text. Since his original read,

"The problem is generally caused by an overloaded circuit, a short circuit, or loose wiring";

Karl seemed to think that an overloaded circuit and a short circuit are the same thing. They're not. Oh, sure, both cause tripped circuit breakers or GFCIs, but Wallulis' advice to,

"Power on the wall switches one at a time for the circuit being tested. If turning on one of the switches trips the circuit breaker, the fixture or receptacle for that switch has a short circuit..."

...is not on point. Nor did he address the question of whether there's an overload when he told his readers to,

"Plug in and turn on the appliances on the circuit one at a time. If plugging in one of the appliances trips the circuit, there may be a problem..."

...which, again, has nothing to do with overloading a circuit. Once again, Wallulis confused a short circuit with an overloaded circuit. We cannot emphasize this enough for the gentleman with a BA in psych: they are not the same thing!

Finally, Karl told his readers to,

"Switch on all appliances in the circuit. If this does not trip the circuit, there was most likely a temporary power surge or an overload caused by an appliance temporarily increasing its power demand."

Seeing as that's the only step in his post that is actually related to checking for an overload, it's too bad that our Dumbass of the Day left it for last. Then again, Wallulis knew so little about residential electrical systems that he confused short circuits with overloads. Small wonder the staff nominated him!

SE - ELECTRICITY