Ok, I am sure this has probably been asked before, but I couldn't find it anywhere. For some reason, when my hous was built one entire side was placed on one breaker, 4 rooms with all lighting and recepitcals. Whenever I turn my vacuum on with a couple of lights on, it throws the breaker. This breaker was a 15 amp breaker and I thought, "why not switch it with a 20 amp?" so I did. Now I'm paranoid that when I come home, my house will be burned down. Could this happen? Should I just pay to have someone rewire my house?

Thanks
Matt

NO, each breaker is made for a specific amp.

It sounds like you need to take some of the wires and make a new circuit.
Add a breaker, don't increase the size of it.

The breaker can be a 20 amp ONLY if the entire brach circuit is wired with #12 wire, which I doubt, since the original installer used a 15 amp breaker.

You are taking a chance of over heating the circuit wiring by allowing more current than the wire can handle.

Of course, this can only happen if you are using the circuit, like having the vacuum running with too many lights, etc. This probably would not "burn the house down" while you are away, but only when you are home using the circuit, so, not to scare you, but you get the chance to lose your home and your life.

Your vacuum must be a larger motor, drawing close to 12 amps, to trip the 15 amp breaker with a few lights on.

Simply change the breaker back to a 15 amp, and consider having some of you existing circuits split up into more circuits. Maybe even having a couple of outlets installed in strategic locations on a separate circuit just for vaccuming.

Tkrussel is right. You need to go back to a 15 amp breaker unless the entire circuit is 12 gauge. It is possible a new 15 amp breaker will not trip where an old, abused one does. It does sound like you need more circuits. Go to wherever you buy electrical supplies and look at the difference between 12 and 14 gauge ware. Chances are there is not much difference in price. Run 12 gauge. More so if you take the safer route of paying somebody to run a new circuit or 2. If your box is full, you can use the half size breakers. Snaking wires through walls is a bit of a pain, less so with uninsulated interior ones.

All you need to do is get a decent extension cord, and plug it into your kitchen or bathroom recepticals. These should be on a 20 amp circuit, and that gives you 5 fresh amps to play with, and avoids costly electric updates.

Your house is XX number of years old and hasn't had a probem for all these years. I wouldn't go the avenue to run new circuits. Replacing the breaker is a good idea. They're inexpensive.

You might also consider getting a vacume with less power (if you don't need to suck the dust off the dust).

Replacing the existing breaker with a 20A is a bad idea but it wouldn't keep me up at night- only when the house is being vacuumed!

I would personally advise against swapping the breaker to a 20 AMP. Sure, just running a vacume probobly won't hurt anything, unless you vacume for long periods, but you never know when you or someone else may be tempted to plug a space heater, or some other AMP hogging devise into that circuit.

Code requires nothing smaller than #12 wire for a 20 AMP breaker. Even if your house doesn't completely burn down, if only a part of it smoulders, upon an investigation of the cause of the fire, insurance could kick it back.

If its tripping a 15 AMP breaker than that means that the circuit is being overloaded, and the breaker is doing its job, do up the AMPerage of the breaker, defeats the whole purpose of even having one.

Only upgrade if you are sure the entire circuit is wired in #12 wire.

Here in Pulaski, we have a LOT of electrical and plumbing applications like this, where people would bypass a safety, and every winter houses burn down too. My house was one of them that was improperly wired. The previous owner had a #12 wire with various taped #14 splices feeding a window AC rec, refrigeratior, and some everyday use outlets, many of the splices were out in the open, and only taped together, exposed in the basement, all on a 20 AMP breaker. I was amazed that the house was still standing.

Now one possibility is that the breaker itself could have gotten weak. If I suspect this is the case, you can always pull an AMP draw on the line and see what its actually tripping at. Or just replace with a new 15 AMP breaker.

Regardless of what bhayne says of not losing sleep over it. stop whatver you are doing, go to your circuit panel and turn the breaker off.

Then, drive to wherever you got your breaker from and buy a 15 amp one.

Go home and replace the incorrectly sized breaker with the new correctly sized one.

Phew, now I can get some sleep as I would be losing some over this.

IF you are handly enough to replace a breaker, then you should be able to run some new circuits.

Use 12 ga wire as Labman suggests, even if you are going to run a 15 amp circuit. From my understanding, as long as the electric outlet (siwth, lights, outlets, etc) is less than or equal to the one higher up the chain, you shold be OK. (for example, even with 12 ga wire, if the breaker is 15 amp, the circuit is 15 amp. However, if the breaker is 20 amp, then subsequent outlet has to be 20 amp or less. (20 amp breaker, 20 amp outlet, 20 amp outlet, 15 amp light, 15 amp oult, 15 amp outlet...

Dan