As families grow, homeowners make home improvements and add new electrical appliances. Over time, you might find that the size of your breaker box is no longer adequate for your needs. This can be especially true for those who purchased a starter home. Or, an older home and are expanding it. As your family grows you need more electricity every day. Your power control center, the breaker box, has to grow along with you to keep up with those demands.
Sometimes you just want to add an appliance. Like a ceiling fan. We often do that for people easily, but sometimes we find the circuit is already is fully loaded with other appliances. When that happens, we need to add a breaker and run a new circuit to power that fan.
If you are making a larger improvement, such as converting unused space in the attic into a bedroom or changing the basement into a home theater room, you might need several circuits added. If your breaker box has blank spaces, room for new breakers to be added, changing out the box wouldn’t be necessary. However, if there are no more blank spaces, a bigger box would be required.
When you do a home improvement that is even larger, such as expanding your garage to add a workshop or hobby area, that will probably call for the addition of a sub-panel. With the new smaller box, you could run several dedicated circuits for equipment and you could control those multiple circuits without returning to the main service panel.
If you have any concerns about the size of your breaker box, here is the best course of action. Have a qualified, licensed electrician determine the amount of load your panel has on it presently. That way you will know if you need an upgrade now. Also, what size of the panel is best for you and your family’s growing needs.
We have over 50 years of experience around Indianapolis. Frye Electric has a team of experts who can handle any electrical issues you may have. Contact us today and see why so many people call us for help and recommend us to their friends.