overloaded circuits

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codeunderstanding

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On older houses where things get added on over the years and it realy loads up the circuits I think the only way to lighten the load would be to add a circuit maybe some where in the middle of that circuit. Find the box where the old circuit goes and fish in the new circuit and hook up accordingly in the box with the new circuit. In my head I cant find away to just rearrange the circuits in the panel with out adding a circuit. This circuit is fine but when they use the blow dryer the circuit will trip. Am I right the only fix would be a new circuit?
 
Try instead installing dedicated circuits to the kitchen, bath, sump, whirlypool, furnace etc. That would take a huge portion of the load off the existing circuits and maybe they can be left alone then.

Whenever I do an update, that's what I do, and I've never had a call-back for an old circuit still tripping, even though I put them on a 15a breaker regardless of the wire size.
 
Most of your load is in the kitchen and laundry. I would focus on these loads first. Beyond that, water heater and furnace. But those should be dedicated already.
 
tom baker said:
Most of your load is in the kitchen and laundry. I would focus on these loads first. Beyond that, water heater and furnace. But those should be dedicated already.
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Should be. But I still run across homes with two sets of cartrige fuses, two mains and two for the range, plus 4 plug fuses for 120v circuits. I've seen the range, water heater, dryer and AC all on the range fuses. And 20 home-runs tied to those 4 plug fuses.
 
480sparky said:
Should be. But I still run across homes with two sets of cartrige fuses, two mains and two for the range, plus 4 plug fuses for 120v circuits. I've seen the range, water heater, dryer and AC all on the range fuses. And 20 home-runs tied to those 4 plug fuses.
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yep almost half of the upstairs of a 2 story house is on one circuit, including where they condition blow dry there hair.
 
codeunderstanding said:
On older houses where things get added on over the years and it realy loads up the circuits I think the only way to lighten the load would be to add a circuit maybe some where in the middle of that circuit. Find the box where the old circuit goes and fish in the new circuit and hook up accordingly in the box with the new circuit. In my head I cant find away to just rearrange the circuits in the panel with out adding a circuit. This circuit is fine but when they use the blow dryer the circuit will trip. Am I right the only fix would be a new circuit?
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This is a good situation to sell some work. A service upgrade and a few extra circuits are in order.
 
codeunderstanding said:
yep almost half of the upstairs of a 2 story house is on one circuit, including where they condition blow dry there hair.
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I once had a call about kitchen SA breakers tripping. They simply had a lot of counter-top appliances. I brought in two more circuits by running a single 12-3 to the central receptacle box.

I dead-ended the original circuit in the previous box (so I could push the ends out of this box) and powered this receptacle with one new circuit, and the remainder on the other new circuit.

You might do the same thing by running a new cable to the receptacle where the hair dryer is used, turning one circuit into three. You could provide one 20a (at the new receptacle) and one 15a circuit.
 
LarryFine said:
I dead-ended the original circuit in the previous box (so I could push the ends out of this box) and powered this receptacle with one new circuit, and the remainder on the other new circuit.
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I cant really picture what you did in my head but I think what would work just as well with this situation is run a new circuit to where they use the blow dryer and find where the feed is coming into the original box and just dead end that one on the original receptacle. Take the fished up wire a 12/3 and connect one circuit for blow dryer only and the other circuit connect to the other half of the original circuit.
 
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