What's with watts for blow dryer?

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ritelec

ritelec

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Jersey
Laying out a vanity area in a bed room. Guess she may want to blow dry hair etc ..
My question is how crucial is the circuit and what gives with hair dryers.

At my house I have a bed room circuit 15 amp with 400 watts in lighting. My wife plugs in to a recpt for her 2000 watt blow dryer. It holds. Sometimes she uses a recept I have designated for ac on either side of the room. With an ac running it holds. Upstairs bath lights and recept on a 15 it holds.

Are these blowers not a true 2000 watt and it's all advertising ?

Thank you
 
ritelec said:
Laying out a vanity area in a bed room. Guess she may want to blow dry hair etc ..
My question is how crucial is the circuit and what gives with hair dryers.

At my house I have a bed room circuit 15 amp with 400 watts in lighting. My wife plugs in to a recpt for her 2000 watt blow dryer. It holds. Sometimes she uses a recept I have designated for ac on either side of the room. With an ac running it holds. Upstairs bath lights and recept on a 15 it holds.

Are these blowers not a true 2000 watt and it's all advertising ?

Thank you
Click to expand...

they are not really 2000 Watts as such things are rated at 125V. That would be 16A at 125V. At 115V it is closer to 1700 Watts.
 
ritelec said:
Are these blowers not a true 2000 watt and it's all advertising ?
Click to expand...

the best way would be to hook it up to a watt meter
or amp meter, and measure.... with a receptacle outlets
being run on #14 and a 15 amp breaker, 1,920 theoretical
circuit watts is getting a little thin..... and manufacturers
seem to draw the line at 1,800 watts for cord connected stuff.

i've checked a couple 1,800 watt dryers, and they came in
at 1,500 to 1,600....

when i was working at DWP, if you were in a switchhouse
with stepping regulators, about 8:15 in the morning,
everyone went outside for a smoke, when the stepping
regulators went nuts... and if one of them is going to fail,
and spit hot oil out the breather, that is when it usually happens.

it wasn't a brown out, more like a blow out...
 
ritelec said:
Laying out a vanity area in a bed room. Guess she may want to blow dry hair etc ..
My question is how crucial is the circuit and what gives with hair dryers.

At my house I have a bed room circuit 15 amp with 400 watts in lighting. My wife plugs in to a recpt for her 2000 watt blow dryer. It holds. Sometimes she uses a recept I have designated for ac on either side of the room. With an ac running it holds. Upstairs bath lights and recept on a 15 it holds.

Are these blowers not a true 2000 watt and it's all advertising ?

Thank you
Click to expand...

I have one rated at 1875 watts at 125 volts. My readings were 1510 watts at 116 volts, a bit over 13 amps.
 
iwire said:
You need to look at the trip curves for the breakers. A 15 amp breaker might hold 10 minutes with a 20 amp load etc.
Click to expand...

I agree if the breaker is calibrated on the low side. But it it is calibrated on the high side it may be 1 hour.At 15a that curve gets pretty vertical and a slight shift to the right from 15 to 20a extends the trip time significantly when the max calibration range is considered. A bit humbling at that.
 
Thank you for the response.

I'll keep just that bed on a 15 and just the receptacles in that bed on that circuit.
 
While it may trip, the product standard will permit a 15 breaker or fuse to carry 20 amps forever and still be in compliance with the standard.
 
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