blowing fuses

I have a extra 1000whps laying around and I was wondering if I have 2 plugged into one surge protector, how long will I have to let both run till I find out if I'm going to blow my fuse or not. I just want to know if I can handle both of them.

I've used 2 1000 on one outlet before but the house had good wiring.I'm in a apartment now and when a have 2000 watts going when I turn on the microwave I blow the circuit breaker. It would be better to plug it into another outlet so you wont overload the outlet and of course use a surge protector

I turned it on and let it run for like 2 min before turning it off. You think its all good? And the only other thing I use is a cell phone charger a tv, cable box, and a dvd player besides other lights(bathroom and kitchen)

you need to check the breaker box and see how many amps the circuit has. just because it runs for 2 minutes means nothing. i think the math is watts over amps. i'm not sure how close you can be to the max. i think you need to allow about 20%. someone else will chime in...

Well hopefully your wiring's up to code. Most fires in a grow will come from improper house wiring. I've heard terrible stories from my electrician buddy who sees nightmare wiring in houses. I would separate the load between 2 circuits if you can't check your wiring any time soon. Your best bet is to call up an electrician even if its not your house.

Can a electrican juice up more power to my house?

Yes you can have a higher amp service to your house but its generally 220v and used for heavy duty electrical equipment with high start up loads. All he would need to do is check out the wiring in your house, and verify it's up to code/safe condition. 2000 watt's isn't a worry on most house wiring, but being left on 18 hours a day could cause a problem. I don't want to make you paranoid, but wouldn't you like the piece of mind knowing your house isn't going to burn down from hidden wiring issues.

Would he need to go through every room in the house? Or can he do it from the breaker box? I actually have 2 extra 1000hps. My friend is borrowing one for his first harvest so eventually I want to have 3 1000 poppin off. With a 10000btu ac with fans and shit.

No not every room, just in the room you plan to grow in, and the room where the breaker is. Wouldn't hurt to get the other rooms checked anyways. Electricians can over charge very easily, so discuss what you need checked over the phone and basically shop around. Don't forget to tell them your plugging in a bunch of 120v heaters/AC's and not a bunch of grow lights haha.

Damn I gotta take all the tarp off my windows and clean up. Guess ill do that after harvest. Thanks for all the help brotha

wow...


you guys gave me a little chuckle... I would be glad to chime in..

First off your surge protector had nothing to do with the amount of power you draw by your house or by an individual circuit... the surge protector will protect the electriconic components of your house in case you house or something close by gets hit by a large spike in the power....ie.. lightening strike.

If you already have a 1000w plugged in, and you are using the existing wiring in the house. And you would like to put another one in the same area/room... There is a good chance, almost 100%, that all the plugs in that room are connected to the same breaker, if they are.. you cannot use that breaker, or bunch of outlets connected to a breaker for more than 80% of its capacity... there fore 12A for a 15A breaker, 16A for a 20A... so one 1000w ballast would draw 1000W/120V= 8.3A , if it ran perfectly economically, the ballast also uses power and converts it to heat, so check your ballast for the amperage rating, you will see it is higher... mine is 9.6A .

So with one 1000w light drawing 9.6 amps... you can obviously not put two on the same breaker.. You will have to run wires from a new breaker to that room to give the room the ability to safely support two 1000w ballasts... plus the fans and other power consuming appliances...

If you want a cheap and ugly fix that is safe... you can go to your breaker panel and turn off the breaker powering your 1st ballast... Now, the other receptacle s that are live have the potential to carry another 12A, so if you can get a heavy gauge (14, 12 or 10)extension cord from the live outlets to the grow room to power the second ballast then you would have the ability to power two 1000w ballasts in one room.. *REMEMBER* These outlets are connected through your house so you WILL have other things drawing power from the same breaker, ie.. when the hairdryer goes on you may blow a breaker... thus NOT allowing you to run an extension cord into the room and you may have to result to pulling the wire and putting in a new breaker yourself or with an experienced friend.

Short form...

No you cannot plug two 1000w ballasts into one 15 Amp breaker.

You must bring another circuit into the room to support the 2nd ballast.. making sure that just because the outlets are in another room does not mean that they are on a different circuit breaker, room side by side typically share some outlets between them.

Everyones house has 220V-240V ability.. the only reason you would use a higher voltage would be to bring down your amperage traveling through a wire thus allowing a smaller wire to feed a larger appliance.. your dryer and stove both use this principal, see how they are bigger breakers with the large toggle switch? if they were just feeding your dryer or stove with the reg white and black wires they would have to be very large, larger then they are now.. So to keep the wire size down, thus the cost down, they run two "legs" out to the same location and use the same neutral/ white for both. So in the case of your stove or dryer you will have a black/white/red and a ground (which is never counted as a conductor but is always there) resulting in a three conductor wire feeding the appliance..

Now why would you want to use 220V to feed your ballast instead of 120V? well amps = heat.... heat is bad...

1000w/120v= 8.3A ..but it will draw 9.6A like stated above so you are close to maximizing the circuit already, 12 is max continuous load.
1000w/240V= 4.16A lower amps means less heat, always a good thing... but in this case it seems almost pointless.. why? because, one breaker will support one 1000W light safely (9.6A out of 12 in a 15A breaker) but not 2 x 1000W (19.2 A out of a safe 12 from a 15A breaker)... so now you install a 3 conductor 15A double pole breaker you can now install both 1000W lights safely...

However here is where the 220V-240V makes sense.. if you wanted to run three 1000W ballasts... then you would take the amps that the light draws at 220V and multiply it.. 4.16A per light.. allows us to put three lights under one double pole 15A breaker... going over the continuous limit by an amp is not technically allowed as per code, but it is not unsafe, I am currently pulling 13A from one 15A breaker with no problems. If you wanted the extra comfort, install 3 conductor 12awg wire instead of the 14awg... it will allow 20 amp (16A continuous) and will be governed by the 15 amp breaker.. there fore if the breaker needed to be upped to a 20A from a 15A, you already have wire installed that is safe for a 20A breaker.

BUT to get 240V to your room you must run a three conductor 14 awg cable from your panel to the room... YOU CANNOT USE THE POWER THERE AND ADD ANOTHER CIRCUIT TO IT making 240V... you must run a 3 conductor cable. Why? basically your panel has two legs and a neutral bar.... and everything "normal" gets its hot from one leg and then the white wire connects to the neutral bar. In the case of something needing 240V, that appliance needs a feed from BOTH legs to get the power it needs, so it would have a big(er) breaker, typically with a large toggle switch on it that looks like two switches joined together.. This breaker is a "double pole breaker", you standard ones are single pole.. Why do you need a double pole breaker, can i just not use two single pole breakers? No... the configuration of the double pole breakers allows the double pole breaker to connect to both legs off you main panel and more importantly, it shuts off the entire 240V if ther was a problem. If you were to pick two random single pole breakers out of the same panel and try to connect them like a double pole breaker, there is a chance they are connected to the same leg and will then only give you 120V not 240V... additionally if you try to put two single pole breakers side by side in your panel they would be taking power from each leg, giving the 240V in the room, but without them being a double pole breaker they do not have the ability to shut the entire circuit off if there is a problem.. both breakers must be tripped to allow the wire to be safe.. that is why a cable that carries more then one "leg" must be connected to a double pole breaker, so when it is shut off manually or by a fault, the entire wire is safe to work with.

Did you enjoy the tangent i just took you guys on?

If you want me to answer specific questions fire away.. I could ramble for ever about electricity... its what i do... = )

do tell him that youll be running somethin like that, cuz they may hook it up aand then when you have breakers blow, they come back and tell you that you didnt tell them it was HID lights, a/c's, heaters AND fans, more power needs to be drawn in and not tandemed together....... well, thats what happened to me. Find an electrician you can be fairly honest with. if your legal its no biggie, otherwise, tell them your growing organic tomatoes, or some shit.

All this shits giving me a head ache. I live in cali and I got a doctors rec so I can grow legally but I'm a paranoid mothafucker that sleeps with my legal gun. I'm going to call an electrician over but I'm not sure I want to tell him I'm growing. I just want to know what to say to him and pay him to do. Like "hi I need a electrician over my house to do......."

This is why you should call the electrician ^^^

I don't recommend doing any work yourself if your not familiar with your the breaker in your house. My panel contains several 30A breakers for electric heaters and the shop tools, but yours is most likely different.

benny blanco said:

All this shits giving me a head ache. I live in cali and I got a doctors rec so I can grow legally but I'm a paranoid mothafucker that sleeps with my legal gun. I'm going to call an electrician over but I'm not sure I want to tell him I'm growing. I just want to know what to say to him and pay him to do. Like "hi I need a electrician over my house to do......."

Click to expand...

okay.. tell the electrician that you are setting up a office to work from home.. you need a 120V circuit with a couple of outlets installed, and a 240V feed on a 20A breaker installed into a 4 11/16 box for your UPS and server or air conditioner unit... that will give him all the basic info he needs.. and he can price it out before coming to your place leaving adjustment for the amount of labour needed to install the wires..

B.U.D.S.I.C.L.E.S said:

I don't recommend doing any work yourself if your not familiar with your the breaker in your house. My panel contains several 30A breakers for electric heaters and the shop tools, but yours is most likely different.

Click to expand...

there is another one... setting up a shop and need the power feeds pulled.. just dont have the tools there yet.. Just dont ask him to bypass the meter and you should be okay.. =)

ResidualFreedom said:

okay.. tell the electrician that you are setting up a office to work from home.. you need a 120V circuit with a couple of outlets installed, and a 240V feed on a 20A breaker installed into a 4 11/16 box for your UPS and server or air conditioner unit... that will give him all the basic info he needs.. and he can price it out before coming to your place leaving adjustment for the amount of labour needed to install the wires..

Click to expand...

Thank you very much sir. +rep

Hey residual I got a quick question for you. I sent you a private message

thanks for that residual!! i knew someone would chime in. didn't have the energy (info.) to do all that. don't most newer homes have sufficient gauge wiring? and can't breakers (in a lot of cases) just be popped out at the box and replaced with a larger one? thankzzzzz....

Silky Shagsalot said:

thanks for that residual!! i knew someone would chime in. didn't have the energy (info.) to do all that. don't most newer homes have sufficient gauge wiring? and can't breakers (in a lot of cases) just be popped out at the box and replaced with a larger one? thankzzzzz....

Click to expand...

great question... most newer homes have proper gauge, 14awg... but even old houses have 14awg too... so new/old doesnt really matter for this reason... old houses tend to have had one electrician add to the closest electrical box.. which isnt wrong but it must be done properly.. my ex-girl's house had the whole fuckin house on two breakers... and five other breakers with close to nothing on them.. that is due to someone running a wire from the closest box to add another plug or light... then it happens again and again.. leading to the hall/kitchen/familyroom/bedroom all being on one breaker..

Now to your question... An AMAZING QUESTION!!! Everybody listen to this one..

yes your panel will allow you to pull your 15 amp breaker out of the panel and insert a 20 amp one.. that would give you 5 more amps, so if you were tripping that would correct it.... until I educated myself, I am now properly licensed, i thought the same thing..

THIS IS THE REASON FIRES HAPPEN!!

Why? because you will have 14awg wire in your walls running to your lights and outlets throughout your house.... 14awg is only good for 15amps.. additionally, the receptacle installed in the wall is only rated for 15amps... So you see the problem... you are able to increase the "flow" from the panel more (breaker from 15-20A) but the infrastructure is not rated to carry that amount of "flow"... therefore the wires and plug will heat up past their capacity and they can cause a fire...

If you install a 20A breaker, you must install wire (12awg is good for 20A) and outlets that will carry that amount of amperage.. the outlets look very similar to reg outlets, but one of the two parallel prongs is in the shape of a "T", allowing regular plugs and the 20A plugs which have one prong horizontal and one vertical, unlike the standard 15A which have both horizontal.. and both configurations have the rounded ground prong below..

that is the no.1 reason people doing home renos cause fires.. do not simply screw in a 20 a fuse or switch the 15A breaker for a 20A... the panel will now let out up to 20A, but the wires and plugs cant handle that much..

note: too much amperage creates heat in the wires and outlets, leading to melting outlets and wires.. causing fires..and typically the wires are completely hidden so you wouldnt see any damage or feel the wire for heat until it would be too late..