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Published January 7, 2025
Electrician Shares Genius Circuit Breaker Hack for Quickly Resolving Electrical Issues in Your Home By Realtor.com
Homeowners, rejoice! A professional electrician has just shared a simple tip for reducing the stress caused by at least one property maintenance issue: figuring out which electrical switch in your house connects to which circuit breaker.
Nate Morgan, an electrician based in Florida, earned viral fame after posting a TikTok video in which he detailed his handy time-saving hack.
Morgan explained that there is an easy way to remember which switches in your home are controlled by which circuit breaker in your breaker box—which works to control the electrical current in a property to prevent fires and other issues.
But while the essential safety feature helps homeowners to avoid potential disaster, it can also be the source of much frustration, largely because breaker boxes typically contain multiple switches that control the flow of current in different areas of the home, but often are not labeled to make these connections clear.
In other words, if you want to carry out electrical work in a specific area of your home, it can be a very tricky task to figure out which breaker switch should be turned off to cut power in that space.
(TikTok/Nate the Electrician)
What does Morgan’s hack entail?
Morgan advises making a simple DIY update to your outlet cover plate: Write the number of the coordinating breaker inside it.
“This tip saves a lot of time!” he wrote in the caption alongside the video, before going on to film himself removing an outlet cover that has the number “13” written inside it.
“Here’s an electrician tip for you,” Morgan says in the video. “If you write the breaker number on the back of the [outlet] cover plate, you know which breaker to turn off every time.”
If writing directly on the cover isn’t an option, Morgan adds in a follow-up post that you can also write the number directly onto the metal outlet that sits behind the plate.
Not for everyone
Despite its simplicity, the electrician’s tip was met with a lot of praise from viewers, many of whom opened up about the great lengths they have had to go to in the past to identify the breaker they needed to shut off.
“I just plug in a lamp, have my husband flip them, and scream when it goes off lol,” one person revealed. Another confessed: “I got tired of figuring this out so I just turn the whole house off.”
There were some naysayers, however, who questioned whether removing an outlet cover every time you need to identify its corresponding breaker is necessary—with one questioning why you wouldn’t label the breaker switches instead.
According to Morgan, that isn’t always an option, particularly when it comes to older homes.
“I rarely find a panel schedule in older homes that’s accurate, [so] good luck with that,” he said.
(TikTok/Nate the Electrician)
What is a circuit breaker?
A circuit breaker is a device that controls the flow of electricity through the home and prevents a power overload, which can lead to outages, fires, and serious property damage.
Circuit breakers are typically found inside a box that has a metal door, and their interior features a panel of different switches.
They can be located in various places throughout the home, depending on the size of the property. If your house has a basement, the circuit breaker can often be found there. However, older properties may well have an outdoor circuit breaker on the exterior of your home.
“The circuit breaker is an essential device in the modern world and one of the most important safety mechanisms in your home,” the experts at Texas-based home maintenance company TopTech explain.
“Whenever electrical wiring in a building has too much current flowing through it, these simple machines cut the power until somebody can fix the problem. Without circuit breakers (or fuses), household electricity would be impractical because of the potential for fires and other mayhem resulting from simple wiring problems and equipment failures.”
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Source: www.realtor.com
