Another Electrical Question

The easiest thing to do would be to split the power drain between two breakers (I have this same problem, the tank lights are on the same breaker as the office lights). Splitting requires only knowledge of your breakers and what outlets they contain.

Yup, it all has to do with the number of amps you're trying to draw. If memory serves (at least over here) each line is made to handle 15A, or rather the breaker is set to allow 15A, no small current, but some appliances draw enormous currents to run.

You probably need to get another line run to spit the current requirements in your kitchen between two lines. It's actually not a terribly complicated job. But if I understand correctly, you need to have at least as many lines as breakers. In other words, you can run 2 lines through a single breaker, but splitting a single line over 2 breakers would only cause a risk of fire by increasing the amount of current you can draw to 30A. But then, it depends on how much current the lines can handle too.

You might want to have the oven checked as well--a short within the appliance can cause it to draw more amps than it should, resulting in a problem when something else is pulling from the same line. Check the fuses as well--if they get old, sometimes this happens. Replacing them is cheap and easy, while splitting the lines will likely require an electrician (or someone with appropriate training). My hubby has added lines and split a few on our house--while they work and are perfectly safe, local building codes frequently require a certified electrician make these modifications.

Actually a 15 amp breaker will trip on a load of ~13 amps.

Assuming its a 15 amp breaker, the first thing to do would be to check what wire is in that circuit, if its at least 12 gauge then you can replace the 15 amp breaker with a 20 amp breaker.

If the wire is not thick enough to handle 20 amps, then I would put the oven on its own breaker.

Ayrianth said:

Thanks for all the advice. .............

And of course once that's done, there will be more room for another (larger) fish tank.

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Now you're talking!! Bigger tank! Bigger tank!

going from a 15 to a 20amp breaker wont help you out much what you need to do is have your kitchen plugs split here in canada it is code to have kitchen plugs split so your not over loading the breakers iam sure its code in florida to here in canada there are a lot of older homes that have the same problem you do they were built before the new electrical codes on kitchen plugs were made all that has to be done to fix your problem is to run a 3 wire from your electrical panel to each plug in your kitchen the electrican will break a tab on the plug so it wont short out when he puts the extra hot wire on the plug by doing this u now have two seperate plugs in one so the breaker shouldnt trip u will also need to chance the breakers for each kitchen plug from single pole breakers to double pole breakers make sure you have room in your electrical panel to do this up grade if you dont have room a small job can trun in to a big one by the way if you have fuses and not breakers this is done the same way except you use two fuses not a double pole breaker i put lots up plugs in my house but still dont have enough good luck hope u get your your problem fixed

joel_88 said:

going from a 15 to a 20amp breaker wont help you out much

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Nonsense, if its tripping because its running at ~13 amps, then it will solve the problem. If your drawing more than ~17 amps then youll need to split the circuit.