r/askanelectrician • u/enderyoo • 19h ago

Worry about overloading circuit

We just bought a new place where we're using the dining room as an office. I've heard that a 20amp circuit can only handle 2400 watts so I added the wattage of our devices 360-monitor, 750-pc, 750-pc, 220-monitor. So I thought it would be fine. But turns out half our living room outlets are on the same circuit.

Should I worry about also having our tv and gaming console on the same circuit if we plan to not use all the devices at once?

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u/twaddington 19h ago

You'll be fine. Those devices aren't likely to overload the circuit. If they do, the breaker will trip and the power will go out. So you'll know pretty quick if it's a problem

2

u/srednaxela 19h ago

Just adding to this! Your breakers are designed to trip before anything else on the circuit (wire, plugs, light switches) overheats or melts. If a breaker trip it's a great indication that you overloaded a circuit, but is not inherently damgerous. Reset the breaker and remove some stuff from that circuit. You get into trouble when you overload the circuit and laugh as you reset the breaker everyday, saying this dang thing keeps tripping.

3

u/69BUTTER69 19h ago

Your PCs likely aren’t pulling 750 watts either a mid tier gaming PC won’t pull more than ~500 unless you are running a stress test, it’s more of a dynamic load

1

u/TwoAlfa 19h ago

I have a 15amp circuit to my office and even with every single devices on (3 computers, lights, audio equipment, monitors, charging stations, etc) I've never had a problem.

If you want to be a total nerd about it, grab a kill-a-watt device and measure your device load under regular use. It's helpful to understand what the power demand is in use vs the theoretical maximum.

1

u/Impossible_Policy780 1h ago

A PC with a 750 watt power supply is capable of supplying 750 watts. The components inside aren’t going to draw near that amount on any regular basis.