not to take this too far off topic, but how is it possible for me to run my keggle at all? On the same circuit i run:
2 x fridges
a tv, dvd player, ipod dock, a set top box, a computer, a small bedside light.
Both of the keggle elements, and a small "brown" pump to recirculate my HLT and transfer to Mash tun.
Oh, and a drill for my milling station.
The shed is detached from the house, but if the clothes dryer or the inside heater fan kick on, then it trips the circuit breaker. When i go to flip it up to "ON" again, it's only one breaker that has tripped.....
I am not an electrician, and have no experience with fuses and house wiring and it's limitations. Therefore i don't understand how i can run all this crap without it tripping more often than it does. (maybe once every couple of brewdays...)
sorry for the slightly off topic, but the info i hopefully get back may also help the OP.
18A on a 16A breaker is not that unreasonable and infact happens quite a bit. Its no different to ironing and boiling the kettle to make a cup of tea at the same time, although that would be slightly higher current draw.
18A total current draw is based on a perfect 240v supply, when in reality it varies +/- 10% either way depending on how far you are from the supply transofrmer and a few other things. Also, these CB's are designed to take 16A (for example) at 100% duty cycle, meaning all the time without backing off. They will take more current than what they are rated for, for a period of time that is very non-linear, that is, start to draw more than the current rating, and the amount of time they can function before tripping decreases quickly
All of the things you listed wouldn't be running at any one time. Yes, the two kettle elements would, but you probably wont be operating 2 x fridges
a tv, dvd player, ipod dock, a set top box, a computer, a small bedside light, drill and pump all at once. Its a matter of duty cycle.
Of course, if you're running the circuit that tight and the dryer kicks in, then yeah, it will trip...
If the shed is detached from the house and trips a CB that is running appliances on it inside your house, it hasn't been wired correctly. It means the feed for the shed was paralleled or piggy backed off of a socket outlet inside your house. Dodgy as.
Running items from the same circuit and running them from the same GPO are quite different.
I had a sparky into my shed to wire in a new 15 amp circuit and he just put a 15A GPO into the 10A circuit. Fecker. I am led to believe that this circuit is rated to 32A in my case.
It is my belief that most wiring to GPO's is rated to about 22A or more but the 10A GPO's don't like to be loaded up with powerboards etc. Apart from the larger ground pin on a 15A GPO the components inside it are more robust than a 10A GPO.
Perhaps the assumption Jayse made was that you were running both 2,200w elements from the same 10A GPO? I don't think that would be good, i'd run two extension leads from seperate 10A GPO's. It wouldn't draw more than the wiring could handle and won't draw more than 10A from each GPO.
Sounds like you have exceeded the total amps for the circuit but maybe not the draw through an individual GPO. Point being is don't pull it all through one GPO. It seems like most circuits would trip if you had everything running at once, they just gamble on you not actually doing that.
Would like a sparky to fill in my misconceptions/blank spots.
I'll try
Running items off of one socket outlet (GPO) or spread out across a single circuit doesn't make much of a difference. Standard Clipsal outlets will easily handle 20A through the mechanics of the outlet. The switch mech (depending on the load) will fail miserably though.
Check that the sparky who wired your shed is licensed... If he has attached a 15A socket outlet onto a
10A circuit, then he has connected it to the light circuit! If you mean, he's just taken a loop off the back of a GPO that's already in your shed, then that is also wrong! 15A circuit breakers need dedicated circuits, with atleast a 20A breaker.
You also refer to the circuit being rated to 32A. I suspect that'd be the sub-mains out to the shed. He most likely fed the shed with 6mm2 Twin and E, protected by a 32A CB. He is correct, it can in theory, supply 32A to your shed. All the lazy fucker needed to do, was install a dedicated CB at the sub-board in your shed, and run a feed to the said outlet...
Wiring to GPO's using 2.5mm2 conductors (minimum size) are rated much higher than the breaker. Somewhere around 22-23A like you said is correct, but the idea of putting a smaller CB on there is to protect the cable from heating up, melting, wires touching and burning the house down
