Most of the wall plug circuits have 15 amp circuit breakers and 14 or 16 gage wire. Any way you get to15 amps trips the breaker. I am not aware of it being any hazard. John Ferrell 6241 Phillippi Rd Julian NC 27283 Phone: (336)685-9606 johnferrell@earthlink.net Dixie Competition Products NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW "My Competition is Not My Enemy" ----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Winter" To: Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 2:05 AM Subject: Re: [OT:] good power distribution > (OT tag added) > > On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 20:17:40 +1200, Hopkins wrote: > > > House just down the road had a fire in there lounge > because a multibox got > > over loads :-{ > > So be careful. > > This had never occurred to me before - the American > wiring scheme, where the only fuses/breakers are at the > distribution box, means that there's nothing to stop you > adding dozens of multi-way socket-strips to each other, > and plugging into a single wall socket. So nothing > technical stops an overload until you exceed the whole > circuit's rating - have I go this right? > > (As a matter of interest, in Britain we have fuses in > each plug, with a maximum of 13A - approximately 3kW - > so you can't exceed this via any single socket because > extension leads/multiway strips have a fuse in their > plug too). > > Cheers, > > Howard Winter > St.Albans, England. > > -- > http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! > email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu