Always blowing breaker

Question

We live in a 37 yr. old house that is total electric. When I try using a electric grill and a 1000 watt microwave at the same time it blows the breaker. How can we fix this problem?We live in Missouri if it matters

Answer 1

The reason you're tripping the breaker is that the peak current draw with both items running exceeds the safe level for that wiring. The answer is to plug one of them into an outlet that's connected to a different breaker. (or use them sequentially :-( ).

The answer is most specifically NOT to replace the breaker with a 20 or 30-amp unit unless you've had an electrician verify the existing wiring is rated for the larger current load.

Answer 2

You are overloading the circuit, plain and simple. Don't do that.

Modern electrical code requires that kitchen outlets be served by two circuits. Shut off that breaker, and plug a night-light or outlet tester into every outlet in your kitchen. If any outlets still have power, that means you have the modern standard of more than one circuit in your kitchen. That's good. Take the time to identify which are on which circuit (turn off one circuit's breaker, and mark all the outlets now dead). Armed with that knowledge, you can take care to plug each of those two appliances into a different circuit.

People didn't always own the cavalcade of countertop kitchen gadgets we now do (George Foreman grills, juicers, wafflers, etc. etc.)

If you are stuck with one circuit, either use heavy appliances one at a time, or install additional circuits into the kitchen. The latter can either be fairly easy or fairly hard depending on the physical construction of the home and space available in the service panel.