Quilty-Louise

Last night I was ironing some fabric for the aprons I am
working on.

My Velocity 100 iron is 1800 watts when it is at max heat
with the steam generator activated, guess my condo can't
handle that much "power" because I tripped the breaker
3 times my hubs was NOT a happy camper with me since
each time it tripped it of course killed the power to ALL the
computers.

Guess I will have to dial back on how hot I set the iron.


Darn and I really LOVE my 1800 watts of juice.

Tartan

Hmmm, might be time to do an energy audit and unplug as many power vampires as you can. Many of todays devices draw power even when they are not on.

NJ Quilter

If you have your own electric panel within your unit, might be best to upgade that particular . circuit to a 20 ot 30 amp breaker. If DH is not able, could well be worth the price of an electrician vs cost of a fire.

Stitchit123

I'm with Tartan and NJ Quilter on this. My garage went up in flames in Feb. and it was an electrical fire. I should have paid closer attention to the dimming of the lights in the house when my brother was out there using one 60 watt light and his computer. The circuit breakers were less then 2 yrs old when the garage was built and the house was updated to accommodate the new garage. Thank God no one was hurt and only replaceable items were lost.

ArchaicArcane

120V x 15A is 1800watts. You're right at the top of what a 15amp breaker will handle. If you're running computers on the same circuit, this will continue to happen. The best thing you can do is move the iron to it's own circuit, or one that's not managing computers and such as well. I do think you'd be best with a 20A circuit at the least though too. Running all the time at the peak of what the wiring is capable of can certainly cause some long term issues.

ManiacQuilter2

You might want to plug your iron into a surge protector. Then if the iron is drawing too much, it will shut off just your iron. Where I use to live, we had so many power failures but one was bad enough to ruin my wireless answering phone along with my neighbor's phone. I have since then, put power surge strips on anything electrical.

Quilty-Louise

These condos were built in the 1980's. We only rent our unit
but the owner LOVES us because we have been here for 11
years and we pay ON TIME.

I will talk to her about installing new breakers for us.

Thanks for the suggestions and I am NOT going to try to
run "full steam" on my iron anymore.