30A to 15A converter?

[daveb]

Originally Posted by vlamgat

Short of having a 30 amp power outlet at home for sore power, i have found the easiest route was to get the one circuit I plug into upgraded to a 20 amp breaker. This is just sufficient to run the charger and the a/c most of the time.

Did you mean 20 amp rated outlet?

[vlamgat]

All my house sockets are 15 amp rated and have 15 amp breakers. I persuaded an electrician to up the breaker to 20 amps with no GFI but the outlet is the same 3 pole that you find everywhere. I know there are 20 amp rated sockets that look like the refular RV sockets with 3 and 4 poles but for this nominally rated 18 amp consumption I think I can get away with it using 10 gauge cable.

[John and Dana]

Vlamgat,

I would be very careful with your set up or you might end up inadvertently burning your house down. The circuit breaker is there to protect the wiring in your house from overheating and catching fire. When the load exceeds the capacity of the wiring two things happen the voltage will drop which can damage electrical equipment (think you inverter charger) it will also cause the wire and all splices in the circuit to heat up which can lead to a fire.

John

[vlamgat]

You are so right and thanks for the warning. I have done this uprating because I know my wiring is new and to spec. In addition single phase 110v stuff is pretty benign below 30 amps. I have some 40 amp rated circuits in the house for steamers and things and they are essentially the same wiring only the breaker is different and there are no junctions. Continuous wiring from the breaker to the appliance and the neutrals.

Now my 220v stuff is a whole other story. In fact to get material that is capable of handling even small appliances you need to use 220v OEM equipment especially from manufacturers that sell product in 220v markets like Europe.

Just my 2c and probably even as valueless as the $ today.

[Ford_6L_E350]

Originally Posted by vlamgat

You are so right and thanks for the warning. I have done this uprating because I know my wiring is new and to spec. In addition single phase 110v stuff is pretty benign below 30 amps. I have some 40 amp rated circuits in the house for steamers and things and they are essentially the same wiring only the breaker is different and there are no junctions. Continuous wiring from the breaker to the appliance and the neutrals.

Now my 220v stuff is a whole other story. In fact to get material that is capable of handling even small appliances you need to use 220v OEM equipment especially from manufacturers that sell product in 220v markets like Europe.

Just my 2c and probably even as valueless as the $ today.

I have to disagree with you here. 15A circuits are normally run with 14ga wire, 20A circuits needs 12ga wire and 30A circuits need 10ga wiring. It takes either a trained eye to tell the difference in the wire gauges, or a magnifying glass to read the size off the wires.

The wire sizes are the same for 110/115/120 and 220/230/240. The wire size (gauge) is a function of the current capacity of the circuit. The breaker should be selected to the lowest capacity of wire, outlet or hard wired device.

Upping a breaker size is a no-no, as is installing a higher rated outlet on an undersize wired circuit.

When you've seen a fire start from an outlet, you will always err on the side of caution. For example: I never run 14ga, even on a 15A circuit, as soon as a run exceeds 50' I will up the gauge again. Wire is cheap. Replacing a wall or a house or a loved one is not.

Mike

[vlamgat]

Once again we are in violent agreement ! I spec'd the house with 12 ga throughout and 4 circuits are run with 8 ga only one of which I actually use with a demand of more than 15 amps. My experience in the UK, South Africa and Switzerland was that all my 220v lines were 10 ga or less per the code. No choice and no breaker was less that 20 amps. These may have changed in the last 10 years but when I built in all 3 places in the 80s we took this as a given. But then all our walls were double course brick, none of this paper and gypsum cr*p we have over here and most walls were plastered with cement. In South Africa I had to use Sentex liquid gel blasting caps to make a hole in the ceiling to hang a light fixture! The houses were built to last!

[Scalf77]

A guess there is now some clarity to the subject. When you said the house was built to spec, I believe most people took that to mean local building codes. Those would be in line with what Mike said. Since you say that the house was built to your spec with 12 ga, and as long as you have a circuit that is built to handle 20 amps (Breaker, wire, outlet?) then you should be fine. I think the concern here was not just for your safety, but for anyone else with the same situation. I don't think we want people to just change their breaker to 20 amps, and think they are good.

-greg