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I'm putting in a powerline Internet adapter for my house (something like this). My mom said it has two circuit breakers, but she has no idea how the house is divided between them. Going across breakers causes too much interference and is bad for the connection, but sometimes the Internet works well and sometimes it doesn't so the signal here is noisy.

Is there an easy way to determine which outlets in my house are on the same breaker? Powerline aside I'm also just curious to find the answer.

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Are you sure there are only two breakers (it seems very few), or do you mean two service panels? – Niall C. Sep 7 '11 at 2:22

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You can get a circuit breaker finder which is a module that plugs into an outlet to send a signal that can be picked up by the other half. The plug-in component appears to only work when the power is turned on. The receiving unit is designed to work at the breaker panel, but I wouldn't be surprised if it worked on other outlets.

circuit breaker finder

Of course this is overlooking the cheap and easy answer: turn off one breaker and see what's still working.

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Beat me to it, I was going to suggest simply turning one off too. ;-) – Conor Boyd Sep 7 '11 at 2:47
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plug in a radio, turn it up and listen for it to go off when you flip a breaker. Too easy. I own one of those circuit testers, work good, but a little pricey for a single use. – shirlock homes Sep 7 '11 at 10:03

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