Question about using 2 circuits

[armchaircommando]

I am doing some research into building an eBIAB+boil kettle with a 1650W heating element and a small pump. After looking at the circuit breakers in my house, it looks like they are all at least 20A. I am not confident that all of the wiring on these circuits is at least 12 gauge to handle the load.

I was wondering if it is a terrible idea to wire up the system with two cords so it could be plugged into sockets on two circuits, and if its not, how would one go about doing it? My guess would be connecting the pair of positive, negative, and ground wires from the two cords into separate buses and then using 12ga wire from there to go to the PID/SSR/heater/etc. My goal in this would be making sure the heater has access to the 13-14Amps it requires without maxing out what the potential 14ga wire in my walls can safely handle.

Sorry if this has been posted before; I did a few searches and didn't see anything.

 

[Homercidal]

A quick google shows that a 20A breaker and 14G wire should be able to handle about 1800W continuous.

I'd do it. I 1650W isn't really that much. About what A blow dryer draws.

 

[iijakii]

My previous system was a dual circuit, 2x 1500w elements. It worked well. I did that because some of mine were 15A breakers. If you have 20A I'd simply unscrew an outlet and check the gauge of the wire running to it.

 

[doug293cz]

I am doing some research into building an eBIAB+boil kettle with a 1650W heating element and a small pump. After looking at the circuit breakers in my house, it looks like they are all at least 20A. I am not confident that all of the wiring on these circuits is at least 12 gauge to handle the load.

I was wondering if it is a terrible idea to wire up the system with two cords so it could be plugged into sockets on two circuits, and if its not, how would one go about doing it? My guess would be connecting the pair of positive, negative, and ground wires from the two cords into separate buses and then using 12ga wire from there to go to the PID/SSR/heater/etc. My goal in this would be making sure the heater has access to the 13-14Amps it requires without maxing out what the potential 14ga wire in my walls can safely handle.

Sorry if this has been posted before; I did a few searches and didn't see anything.

Not sure what you are getting at with the red text, but it sounds flaky the way it is written. With AC, there is no positive or negative side. And if you are going to use two circuits for element power, you need to have two elements, one powered from each circuit, with no connection between them.

Brew on

 

[CGish]

I am doing some research into building an eBIAB+boil kettle with a 1650W heating element and a small pump. After looking at the circuit breakers in my house, it looks like they are all at least 20A. I am not confident that all of the wiring on these circuits is at least 12 gauge to handle the load.

I was wondering if it is a terrible idea to wire up the system with two cords so it could be plugged into sockets on two circuits, and if its not, how would one go about doing it? My guess would be connecting the pair of positive, negative, and ground wires from the two cords into separate buses and then using 12ga wire from there to go to the PID/SSR/heater/etc. My goal in this would be making sure the heater has access to the 13-14Amps it requires without maxing out what the potential 14ga wire in my walls can safely handle.

Sorry if this has been posted before; I did a few searches and didn't see anything.

Not sure what you are getting at with the red text, but it sounds flaky the way it is written. With AC, there is no positive or negative side. And if you are going to use two circuits for element power, you need to have two elements, one powered from each circuit, with no connection between them.

Brew on

Doug is right - be very careful here - electricity can and will kill.

If I understand your explanation correctly, what you are describing is a redneck 240 volt circuit. You can do it, but it is less than optimal in terms of safety. I have an uncle who is a welder and he has a special cord wired up just like you describe to power his welder on jobsites with no 240v access. Just plug the two cord heads into two 120v circuits and you have 240v.

From your description, I don't think you want 240v.

 

[doug293cz]

Doug is right - be very careful here - electricity can and will kill.

If I understand your explanation correctly, what you are describing is a redneck 240 volt circuit. You can do it, but it is less than optimal in terms of safety. I have an uncle who is a welder and he has a special cord wired up just like you describe to power his welder on jobsites with no 240v access. Just plug the two cord heads into two 120v circuits and you have 240v.

The redneck 240 only works if you connect to two 120 circuits from opposite lines of the 240 feed. If you connect to two circuits from the same line, then you get ~0. Not something for amateurs to mess with.

Brew on

 

[armchaircommando]

Not sure what you are getting at with the red text, but it sounds flaky the way it is written. With AC, there is no positive or negative side. And if you are going to use two circuits for element power, you need to have two elements, one powered from each circuit, with no connection between them.

Brew on

Okay, I guess hot, neutral, and ground are the right designations. What I was getting at is having the two hots, neutrals, and grounds from each circuit each connecting to a different terminal bar, and then using a lower gauge wire to go from the terminal bars to other components. I was planning on using a single element since I only make 2.5 gallon batches. Probably a bad guess about how one might wire that up...

What I am getting from the comments here is that I might be worrying too much about this and that I would probably be fine running a 1650W element off of a 20A receptacle, 20A breaker, and the hopefully 12GA but maybe 14GA wire in my wall.

Edit: Thanks for the replies everyone! It's pretty clear that combining two circuits the way I mentioned is not the way I want to do this. I will probably try to just use one of my existing circuits for this.

 

[WScottCross]

Not sure what you are getting at with the red text, but it sounds flaky the way it is written. With AC, there is no positive or negative side. And if you are going to use two circuits for element power, you need to have two elements, one powered from each circuit, with no connection between them.

Brew on

If you happen to pick two circuits that come from opposite legs of the main house panel, you end up with 220VAC. Definitely not the right or safe way to do it though. If you want to use 2 separate circuits with 2 elements, that's fine. That will still only get you somewhere around 3000 Watts. If you step up to 220VAC using a stove or dryer connection (or run a new line using 10GA wire), you can use a 5500W element and it will rip.

 

[wilserbrewer]

For a 2.5 gallon batch, a 2000w element on a 20 amp 120v GFI circuit should serve you well.

5500w is triple what you realistically need.

 

[PeteNMA]

If you want to run higher power than you can pull from a single 120v 20a outlet you're best off installing a second element and running it independently. Although as wilserbrewer points out for 2.5g 2000w should be enough