Home circuit breaker panel

mjroennebeck

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Mar 9, 2025
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Question for everyone. Did any of you upgrade your house circuit breakers to a higher amperage before you did your show? I'll be running power wires from my garage outlets and the outlets on the outside of my house. They are 20 amp circuit breakers and I'm upgrading them to 60 amp circuit breaks. That way won't shut power off to my house. Is what I'm doing necessary or overkill?
 
Have you consulted a licensed electrician or your local electrical code manual?
 
Question for everyone. Did any of you upgrade your house circuit breakers to a higher amperage before you did your show? I'll be running power wires from my garage outlets and the outlets on the outside of my house. They are 20 amp circuit breakers and I'm upgrading them to 60 amp circuit breaks. That way won't shut power off to my house. Is what I'm doing necessary or overkill?
I hit the “like button” by mistake
Please refer to post about consulting. Licensed electrician
As my wife insists when I am running cords every where to power the show
“Don’t Burn The House Down”
 
Yes, I've added multiple 20A (at 240V as in NZ we use 240v) circuits, a dedicated 32A circuit to feed a large temporary distribution board that can be put outside each season, and a couple of dedicated 15A outlets, mainly 15A because they were available second hand cheap and they'll handle the typical 10A continuous load better than a 10A outlet. I am licensed to do all this myself however, so don't just DIY this sort of thing, it can be a threat to life and safety if you do it wrong.

Randomly upgrading a circuit breaker just so it won't "Trip" is a stupid idea if the wire that circuit breaker is feeding is undersized for the current protection rating that circuit breaker is rated to. You will cause a fire doing this. I would NOT do this.
 
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Did any of you upgrade your house circuit breakers to a higher amperage before you did your show?
No. My whole show runs from 2x 10A outlets and pulls around 2kW (8A) from the wall at its highest.
The power used is not significant; until you get into the multiple-hundred-thousand LEDs, or a number of moving heads with discharge lamps.
 
60 amp wiring would be huge. I think you would have to run #4 to the outlets? And locally, most outlets are 20A max before going to dryer/stove/air conditioner style. And then you have the problem of converting the outlet down to something you can you use in your show which logically would need its own circuit breaker to protect the "undersized wire". You should stick with 20A circuits and just add a few extra.
 
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