I recently purchased a new home and want to know what should my interior wiring be rated at? IE: Shouldn't it be able to handle a 20A circuit breaker. My exterior outlets (3) and the 2 interior garage outlets are all on the same 15A circuit breaker, I was told that 15A breakers were used because my wiring couldn't handle 20A breakers?

Wire is amperage rated by American Wire Gauge (AWG). I will assume someone noted that the wire is 14 gauge, rated for 15 Amp. You cannot put a 20 Amp breaker on 14 guage-well you can but your new house may burn down!-. The only way to safely use a 20 Amp breaker is to rewire to 12 gauge. What are you running, or plan to run, that requires 20 Amp?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ma0641

Wire is amperage rated by American Wire Guage (AWG). I will assume someone noted that the wire is 14 guage, rated for 15 Amp. You cannot put a 20 Amp breaker on 14 guage-well you can but your new house may burn down!-. The only way to safely use a 20 Amp breaker is to rewire to 12 guage. What are you running, or plan to run, that requires 20 Amp?

---

The current set up doesn't allow me to run multiple power tools at one time, my air compressor trips the breaker instantly and the only things that are plugged in are my TV, satellite receiver, and fridge(3 stall garage, 1 stall is the man cave). The electrician who wired the house told me he would run a couple more outlets and put them on a different circuit so I could use my stuff. So I am just basically verifying that he is not trying to soak me for another 200 dollars. Thanks for the help.

Multiple tools, especially heavy draw items like a compressor, typically cannot be run together. This is common even with newly wired places.

Here's where discussion with the builder could have saved you $175. I built a house 4 yrs ago and ran 2 garage circuits, 4 outlets in all for $25 extra, I supplied the boxes and 20 amp outlets