Ask a Local Electrician: Do I Have Enough Power for a Big Appliance?

If you're in the market for a big, new appliance, you're spot-on in wondering if you have enough power to sustain it. And by “big,” we mean more than a new coffee pot or toaster oven. We mean a new central air conditioner, furnace, refrigerator, hot water heater or hot tub – the “heavy duty” appliances that require and draw the most power from your home's electrical panel.

A skilled and licensed local electrician is best qualified to work through the mathematical process of determining your home's electrical load – or how much electricity your home needs to function properly. This is a fun activity that you might enjoy participating in – and we're not just saying this because Experts In Your Home gets a real charge out of electricity. The process can be truly enlightening in terms of putting electricity in realistic, understandable terms.

How much power can your home currently handle?

To begin, your electrician will determine how much power your electrical panel supplies to your home. A standard size is 100 amps (the minimum allowed by the National Electrical Code) or 150 amps. The bigger your house and the more power it draws, the more amps it requires. And now you may need even more, depending on that big, new appliance. This is why you're wise to consider the question in the first place; the addition of a major appliance could overburden and shut down your electrical panel.

In general, this is how many amps a home usually requires:

• A two-story, three bedroom home with gas heat usually requires 100 amps.
• A two-story, three-bedroom home with electric heat usually needs between 150 and 200 amps.
• A five-bedroom home that runs on gas heat usually draws between 150 and 200 amps.
• A 5,000 square-foot home with gas heat usually needs 200 amps.

Since these are generalities – not hard and fast rules – rest assured: Your local electrician also will size up:

• The square footage of your home
• Your home's layout, number of levels and elevation
• Lifestyle issues, including the number of people in your home and how they use electronics, lighting and appliances. As you might expect, a work-from-home couple with a busy home office probably uses far more electricity every day than a couple whose home is empty until 6 p.m. Extra computers, printers and refrigerators all must be included in the equation, too.

Based on these factors, the electrician will compute a certain number of amps for your home's lighting and and general-use outlets. Then comes the matter of that big, new appliance.

Here are some examples of the amps some major appliances require:

• Central air conditioning and a gas furnace: about 15 to 20 amps each
• An electric dryer: about 20 amps
• An electric hot water heater: about 20 amps
• An electric stove and oven: from 25 to 30 amps
• Hot tubs: from 20 to 40 amps

At the end, things may get a little tricky, math-wise. But fear not: your local electrician knows what he's doing. For example, he knows that all of your electrical devices rarely operate at the same time. He will take that into consideration while computing your home's electrical load. Further, he will factor in a margin of error – usually rounding up by 25 percent to prevent your electrical panel from overloading. For example, if your home “scores” 92 amps, he will round up to 115 amps.

Let Experts In Your Home put your mind at ease to ensure you have enough power for that big, new appliance – with no service interruptions or damage to your electrical panel. In the process, we can virtually guarantee: it will all add up to fun.

If you're getting ready to install a new appliance, contact a local electrician at Experts In Your Home to make sure your home can handle the load. We serve Chico, Paradise and surrounding areas and are here to help.

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