Dedicated circuits serve single appliances in your home (your washer, dryer, refrigerator, furnace, garbage disposal, etc.), and only a commercial electrician should install one in your Fort Lauderdale home. It’s a pretty complicated, possibly dangerous procedure, not a DIY project. Heat pumps, sump pumps, air conditioners, dishwashers, hot tubs, and anything that has its own motor calls for a dedicated circuit.
To break it down further, think about the electricity entering your home; it first enters a circuit breaker or fuse box. Inside the circuit breaker box or fuse box are the individual circuits that feed electricity to separate areas of your home (kitchen, basement, bathroom, etc.). A breaker or fuse protects each circuit; smaller appliances need 15-amp circuits; mid-size appliances (such as toasters and televisions) need 20-amp circuits. The bigger appliances in your home have amps ranging from 30 to 50, in dedicated circuits, protected by double pole breakers. For safety’s sake, some medium and heavy-duty home appliances need their own dedicated circuit. The biggest appliances in your home, your electric dryer, kitchen range, and hot tub, require 240-volt power amps and dedicated circuits. Only a commercial electrician should set up this kind of circuit. The National Electric Code dictates that these appliances must have their own separate dedicated circuit.
Not dedicating a circuit specifically to one major appliance can result in blown fuses, tripped circuit breakers, and, in the worst cases, an electrical fire. If you don’t have a dedicated circuit for a major appliance, like your dryer, it can draw too much current than the circuit to handle, which will cause the wiring to overheat; if this happens, the insulation around the wire may break or melt, and, if that happens, the electrical current will no longer be confined, and can quickly ignite any nearby flammable materials, leading to a fire.
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