The cover plate on a light switch or receptacle should not feel excessively warm and certainly should not be hot. A dimmer is an exception because dimmers dissipate the heat from dimming through the fins of the dimmer and often transfer some of that heat to the screws holding on the cover plate. Cords and plugs shouldn’t feel hot, either. Heat is a sign that the load is demanding current in excess of the ampacity of the electrical cable and/or the plug and cord attached to the load. If you replace a 60-watt light bulb with one of a larger wattage (one whose wattage exceeds the rating for the fixture), the wire or cable will still supply the current, even if doing so makes the fixture dangerous.
Heat signals that you should examine the total load on a circuit or a cord and plug.
In the case of a hot circuit, you should …
- Make sure the circuit breaker or fuse is the correct amperage for the circuit itself and the cable or wire that forms the circuit.
- Total the combined load on the circuit.
- If the load exceeds the circuit’s design, reduce the load. The real danger of an overloaded circuit is a wire heating up unseen inside your walls to the point where it can start a fire.
No comments:
Post a Comment