Well, with PriusChat being down so much and the fact that warm weather has stymied my "frog" antics in Portland, OR (How frogs went from right-wing meme to anti-ICE protest symbol), I decided to check all my home electrical outlets and switches A few months ago, another PC member had mentioned using Leviton's new Lever Edge system when replacing an outlet. I had a couple of outlets where the plug was nearly falling out, so replaced them with Lever Edge models and was impressed. So, not hopping around today, I decided to check all outlets and switches in this nearly 60-year-old home and found that several more outlets were "barely hanging on" to power plugs and a few wall switches were also loosey-goosie -- the switches flipping as easily as a politcian on election eve. Headed to my local hardware store this morning and spent under $30 to replace eight old switches/outlets. It was really quick and easy with the lever system. The "improved" lever edge products are about a buck more than the old school -- at least at my hardware store. All the outlets I replaced were old backstab only -- nary a screw connection, except for the ground. I ended up breaking the old outlets to get the wires out. Anyway, nope, I "ain't" no influencer and I am not getting anything from Leviton for this (though I wish I knew how), but thought a few of you might be interested. Saved me a bit of time and a bit of cursing.
Color is white. Only color they had. Replaced ivory, but, white for ivory, eh. No biggy. But I do have two black outlets in the kitchen that have 20 AMP outlets, despite being 15 AMP lines. Installed them myself in 2009 when I remodeled. I used wooden outlet covers and the black outlet looks great. White or ivory would be blah. If there was lever lock in black, 15 amp, I would replace, mostly as I will be selling in a year or two and do not want hear the home inspector whine
Amazon Leviton decora (not the lever kind) https://www.homedepot.com/pep/Leviton-15-Amp-125-V-Tamper-Resistant-Duplex-Outlet-Receptacle-Black-1-Pack-T5320-E-R55-T5320-00E/202066706 There's black 15 amps in two shapes, you have time to fix it.
In my opinion, no fix needed as the breaker should trip if anyone tries to hook up a 20 amp tool -- and I am the only using the outlet anyway. HOWEVER-- the black outlets might be O.K. as I looked at the panel and saw that there is a 20 amp breaker for the kitchen outlets -- I had a contractor come in around 2009 and install new countertops, induction cooktop, etc. The electrician was a bit strange as he did not install GFCI along the countertop near the sink, but the kitchen breaker is a 20. ??? The deal is that the 15 amp outlets felt less robust than the 20s. And, the wire hookups were easier on the 20 amp as the side connections contained plates that held down the wire as the screw was tightened. The 15s just had a screw and i always had trouble with the hooked wire trying to walk away as I tightened. The lever edge solves all that.
There are 15-amp receptacles built with those plates too. You just have to look for them and not buy the cheaper ones.
There are 20 amp gfci breakers and others that are combo arc fault and gfci. No need for gfcis downstream but they "should" have a label indicating they are gfci protected.
... as long as they are really downstream, as in, their wiring connected at the 'load' terminals of the GFCI you put in. (Those are the terminals usually covered with some bright-colored tape saying "don't go attaching the supply wires here".)
Oh, looky there, so you were. Sorry. The breakers are not quite exactly plug-n-play, because if the original breakers weren't GFCI, they are only connected to the black wires in your outgoing circuits, and the white wires land on busbars in the breaker box. The GFCI breaker will typically* have its own white pigtail wire to run to the neutral bus, and then both of the branch circuit wires have to land on the breaker. Which is simple enough in principle, but how simple it is in practice will depend on how fastidious the electrician who first wired the breaker box was, and the paths those white wires follow in there to get to the busbar and how much length is left over. * there are some newer no-pigtail GFCI breakers out that just snap onto the busbars like old ones did, but I bet those are for newer-design boxes that have the neutral bus located where they can snap on.
A 15 amp circuit is legal with 14 awg romex while a 20 amp circuit needs 12 awg wiring. A 20 amp receptacle has the horizontal portion in the neutral socket as shown above. Some tools and appliances that run at 16-20 amps have that horizontal neutral on their plug to avoid use in a 15 amp circuit. With the 20 amp receptacle on a 15 amp circuit you can overload the 14 awg wire. Unlike conventional wisdom, that 15 amp breaker (standard or gfci or arc fault) won't trip for hours if at all. While people get away with this because of conservative engineering, by code it is wrong. Insurance companies could also deny a claim. This is probably the biggest concern. It is more common to use standard vertical neutral receptacles on 20 amp wiring and breakers. On a side note, more recent codes require arc fault breakers on almost all new home 120 vac circuits. Typically all 120 vac circuits then get combo gfci arc fault breakers. The arc fault features address a real fire safety issue, arcs caused by loose connections or damaged wiring. The logic in an arc fault breaker is complex and some manufacturers like Eaton initially got it wrong including the bottom model: The bottom device was one of the failing gfci arc fault breakers that was used in a box with a plug in neutral bar. They would fail by false tripping and usually would trip again after resetting. They also ran hot to the touch even before failing.
I understand all that, but not that the 15 amp breaker doesn’t work right. Not sure I can agree with that, because why have them. It’s seems its a way to say the 20 outlet is wrong. We all know power strips or extension cords can have multiple outlets. The 15 amp breaker must protect the 15 amp wiring. Im buying right now afci breakers to put in my daughters house to replace standard breakers. I replaced one in my house using the dual function afci/gfci. She has a Murray panel that has some tandem breakers and Siemens makes a tandem afci in 15 and 20 that is acceptable for a Murray panel. Siemens owned or owns Murray. Using 15 amp outlets on 20 amp circuits, I say just from common sense that’s wrong. It’s rated 15, it’s not a suggestion it’s a rating. I know they are used. Not by me, 20 outlet matches 20 breaker
Nobody says it doesn't work right. When you look at breaker specs, they have a curve, %overload versus time to trip. A big overload trips it quickly. A smaller overload takes a longer time, sometimes a way longer time. That's one of the things about using real-world devices and not theoretical, perfect devices. The people working on the code-drafting committees try to condense all those real-world complexities into rules of practice that can be followed without everyone having to get an engineering degree to sling romex. So when they make a rule saying "don't use 14 AWG wire to supply receptacles that invite people to plug in > 15-amp single loads", there's generally been a lot of real-world detail that fed into that.
Yes a circuit breaker has two tripping mechanisms, one magnetic that is designed to quickly trip on very high currents and one thermal which is slow but could take hours or forever at a few amps over its rating. For example an Eaton 15 amp breaker is 20% overloaded at 18 amps. On this thermal trip time chart that overload is represented as 120 on the horiz axis with the minimum and maximum manufacturing variances graphed. 18 amps on a 15 amp breaker could easily take 10,000 seconds to trip or realistically might never trip. A 50 amp breaker might allow 60 amps in a similar manner. Again, all of the codes, wiring and devices have safety factors built in so in reality it does not matter that a 15 amp breaker might not trip at 18 amps. However many insurance companies will look for any excuse to deny a claim so its best not to mix and match ratings.
