power supply

[Walsingham]

With my shiny new PC arriving tomorrow I've got a question about power supply. To white: how many items can I reliably/safely run from a single UK wall socket? In the long term I'm having a guy come in next week and fit more plugs, but right now I have my desktop, monitor, printer, scanner, internet hub, speakers, and external hard drive all running off the one point.

 

So tomorrow I'm planning on running in an extension cable from another room, which (since no one else is around at present) will only hazard my face if I fall over it. But how careful ought I to be?

[Gorgon]

Well if it can't do it it should just shut off by itself, it shouldn't burn any breakers. If the electrical installations are up to scratch that is.

[Gorgon]

PS I am not responsible if your house burns down.

[LadyCrimson]

My understanding is it's less to do with the how many plugs/outlets, and more to do with how your house is wired and what its amp/watt capacity limits are before the circuits become overloaded. ie, there's no single answer. You know how in many modern homes wiring systems divide the circuit breakers (one for living room, one for kitchen, one for washer/dryer etc)? That's so you can still run your washer/dryer without having to turn everything else off first. Only adding more outlets to a room, that are still attached to the same circuit as the others doesn't help at all.

 

Again, same thing, running an extension from another room would only alleviate some of the load if that other room is on a different circuit than the original room.

 

In the US 120 volt outlets can handle only so many amps of maximum current. 120 volts multiplied by amps (typically 15amp in US for general purpose) = maximum watts. So the total power of all "things" per circuit must be equal to or less than that max. watts number.

 

I don't know how they do things in the UK, but in the US, unless you have very very old, non-updated wiring in the house or faulty circuit breakers, there's not typically a high degree of danger. Most things don't use that many watts. My husband probably has a gajillion things plugged into one circuit - multiple monitors, several pc's, printers, modems, firewalls, and on and on) and has never run into a problem (he's fairly schooled in electronics/the hows & whys & doesn't worry overmuch) so I doubt you're in any real danger. Granted, he rarely has all of those things on at once, but if you then add on my two PC's and peripherals + lights + fans in summer, well....no problems yet.

 

It is a good question tho, since it probably won't be long before all the things we want to plug in at one time will end up being more than what average houses have, without extensive re-wiring.

 

And yes, the fire danger comes from the circuit breaker (or other wiring) being faulty/not up to code or not working properly. Otherwise, the circuit breaker should trip and everything just turns off, like the power going out.

Edited July 7, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[LadyCrimson]

I just looked at our dryer circuit, and it's rated at 30amps. So again, it depends on your circuit capacities. It's possible that more modern buildings would have 'general purpose' circuits that are more than 15amp these days.

 

EDIT:

PS I am not responsible if your house burns down.

lol, ditto.

I think my basic concept is correct, but there may be more info/details to consider that I know nothing about that could mean better or worse in terms of the question. heh

Edited July 7, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[Jorian Drake]

PS I am not responsible if your house burns down.

heh, reassuring

[mkreku]

With my shiny new PC arriving tomorrow I've got a question about power supply. To white: how many items can I reliably/safely run from a single UK wall socket? In the long term I'm having a guy come in next week and fit more plugs, but right now I have my desktop, monitor, printer, scanner, internet hub, speakers, and external hard drive all running off the one point.

No problem at all. A common hair-dryer uses something like 1200W. Your computer isn't going to go above 500-600W. Monitors, printers, scanners and such are basically negligible in the grand scheme of power things. I also have all my computer stuff hooked up to one socket.

 

Of course, I have no idea what kind of building standards you have where you live, but in Sweden you can hook up a vacuum cleaner to any wall socket in the house and those can be 2000+ W..

[Walsingham]

Both useful and interesting, all. My concern for these things comes from living in the Far East for a while. I woke in the middle of the night to see a warm glow, as of the dawning sun. It turned out on closer inspection to be one of the wall outlets glowing. Of course that in turn appeared to arise from someone having used a six inch nail as part of the circuit. It made me quite nervous.

 

So as I understand it, proceed without fear, but have an electrician check the overall layout asap.

[LadyCrimson]

A six inch nail? Well, that's one way to jury rig a circuit I guess.

I've seen even worse on those home improvement shows where they tear open a wall and find all kinds of horror. Amazing what some will do.