Overloaded Circuit!

Yesterday, I took a short drive to a call here in Livermore. I caught up with the Maine Electric guys, Angel and Tim, who had already begun working on their job. The home had a microwave unit that was connected to same circuit as an outlet. The microwave and the outlet had been used at the same time causing the circuit to become overloaded. This picture below shows what happens to the wire when there is too much electricity for the circuit to handle. This could potentially start a fire.

The goal for today was to place the microwave on a dedicated circuit. Also, the electrical panel had to be replaced because not only did it not have enough room for a dedicated microwave circuit but it was located on a "firewall" and needed to be properly repositioned. A firewall in your home is different from the firewall you may have on your computer to protect you from harm. In this case, a firewall means that the location of the electrical panel is within a wall facing the inside of the house. For added safety from fire and by city regulation, it is required the fuse box be framed on the outside of the wall. So, Angel and Tim got to work.

Angel carefully disconnected the wires and began to remove the old fuse box. Meanwhile, Tim started to make the hole into the attic.

Once the attic opening was made, Angel could then begin to drill the hole in which the new wire would come down. Also, the wire could then be sent to Tim who would then pull the wire towards the location of the microwave. Tim would then send the wire down into its new location where an outlet solely dedicated for the microwave would be assembled.

Finally, it was time to patch up the holes and install the new electrical panel.

The electrical panel would be framed with wood and sheetrock. After all the wires were installed, Angel and Tim worked together to label each and every breaker if in the future power needed to be cut off in a specific area.

Electricity is no joke! As we saw at this location, an overloaded circuit caused a wire to burn. There was no fire but luckily our trained and certified electricians were called in order to prevent the microwave overloading the circuit from happening again. If you would like more information about Maine Electric and our their services please visit their website.

For more pictures of the job click here.