We purchased a house and have been going through the eletrical and cleaning up some of there "mess" OK lazy ness to make sure evreything is correct. We have the majority of it all cleaned up. However, we came across something that seemed odd. The Furnace (gas) is on a dedicated 15amp breaker. Shouldn't this be on a dedicated 20amp breaker? Is there a way to tell? If so how? Also can it be moved to a 20 amp w/ only a little bit of pain?

Thanks as always for all the good ideas.

Granted you would expect a 20 circuit but if its working on a 15amp circuit leave it alone. If you like you can look at the electrical plate and see just how many amps it requires. All this assuming you are talking about a gas or oil fired furnace. They don't have much more than a fan motor.

Agreed I wouldn't normally mess with it if its working. But evrything else in the house kind of worked funny till we cleaned up the electrcal mess someone left for us and things seem to be working much better now. So we figured this would be easy as I have an extra empty 20amp breaker I could move it to. This would allow me to put a some electrical outlets and lights on a nice simple 15amp breaker. So where would I look on the furnace to see what is truly reguried.

You would look at the rating sticker. But I also ask, WHY mess with it?? Why do you ASSUME it is wrong? Most gas furnaces are on, or can be on, a 15A branch circuit.

If it is on a 15 there is a pretty good chance it needs to be. I bet it is wired with #14 so "moving the circuit to a 20A" would require re-wiring the WHOLE circuit, including the emergency switch.

Why not put your nice new receptacles on the nice simple spare 20 you have? Or you can go out and buy another simple $4 15A breaker if all you have is #14 wire.

I hope you realize that the wiring must be rated for the capacity, or higher of the breaker.

e.g. for typical 15 and 20 Amp circuits

20 A breaker can use 12 AWG wire
15 A breaker can use 14 AWG or 12 AWG wire

I only assume it may be wrong as 90% of the other things we found in the house was wired wrong. So we just wanted to check. Everything is 12-2 wire so that part should be fine. So I will look at the furance and see what we find. Where would the requriments be on the furnace itself. Am I looking for a red plate w/ things on it?

Not necessairly, probably be a silver colored sticker giving all information about furnace such as type of fuel, clearances, BTU's. Probably in the area of the gas valve assuming gas furnace.

Sounds great I will look tonight :)