Too much on one breaker

3 years ago

We bought an old home and installed energy efficient LED ceiling lights, to find out that almost all of the lights are also tied into the same breaker as the kitchen. The current panel is only 50A, soon upgrading to 200A. In the process, can the lights connection be wired to a different breaker? Or will the 200A upgrade fix that?

Featured Answer

Dave

3 years ago

A new service will not reconfigure the circuits unless theyre piggybacked in the panel.

What is on the cicuit that you think is overloaded?

You can have A LOT of led lights on a single circuit.

Fyi it would 1800 watts of lighting to get to 15 amps and your leds are likely 10 watts or less each.

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Comments (6)

dennisgli
3 years ago
I'd start by verifying how many cables are fed from the current panel and what kind of wiring you currently have. There probably isn't much point in upgrading the panel if you are not making other changes.
James Xavier thanked dennisgli
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James Xavier
Original Author
3 years ago
After the new Led lights were instslled, all of the lights in the house flicker if too much is on. And we dont have much on this had not happened before the installation. the microwave, stove and lights (and several outlets) are all on the same circuit. this was bad news to us but hoped the 200A upgrade would absorb the loads
dennisgli
3 years ago
I don't think upgrading the panel to 200 amps will "absorb the load".

So if you turn on one LED light and then turn on what makes it flicker? Have you tried a different brand/model LED bulb?
Dave
3 years ago
Agree.

200a service will do nothing if you have stuff like a microwave and other large appliances on the same circuit. I doubt your stove is on the same circuit as that would normally be 240v.

If you bought cheap leds off amazon, they can be known to have issues.

You need an electrician to come out and assess things before wasting money on just the new service.
wdccruise
3 years ago
- I would turn on each circuit one by one. Figure out the outlets, lights, appliances, etc. that are attached to each circuit.
- An electric range (240v), dishwasher (120v), and electric dryer (240v) should have its own circuit. Maybe refrigerator (120v) and installed microwave (120v or 240v) too -- dunno.
- Label each circuit on the panel.
- Turn on only the LED lights so they don't flicker.
- Turn on the device(s) that causes the lights to flicker. What are they? Are they on the same circuit as the LEDs?
- Are the LEDs dimmable? Are the LEDs controlled by a dimmer? I had cases where the dimmable LED lights flickered because they were incompatible with the dimmer. Sometimes an LED light will flicker even if a dimmer is on full brightness (I'll guess it's because the dimmer was not providing full voltage).
- The most-compatible dimmers are Lutron LED+ dimmers. For the greatest likelihood of success use a dimmer with a physical switch such as the Lutron Diva or Skylark dimmer.