How Fuses and Circuit Breakers Work | Ask This Old House 

If you live in an old house, they do have reset-able fuses you can screw in, you just push the bottom on it, and you can reset it just like a modern circuit breaker.

When a circuit breaker trips you shouldn't just "turn it back on and you're back in business" without first determining if you are overloading the circuit by having too many things plugged in and turned on.

Once again, these shorts videos are for the basic homeowner so they can get a better understanding of the fuse / circuit breaker systems.

Good presentation. Thx!

Very informative thanks 🙏

He is the man when it comes to all things home electricity

helpful information, thank you for sharing !!

I was a trouble shooter in my city electric dept. People used to put pennies behind the fuse stats to eliminate the fuse. Of course it caused many fires.

I do wiring a lot and this is awesome

I'm glad they added Scott as a regular. He's great! They were missing an Electrician on the show.

Awesome! I'm reading this book about home electricity and it mentions breakers and fuses with pictures... I'm looking at the fuses, like what is this? What does it do? Haha good to know it's just older tech

I remember reading somewhere that MCBs can stick (though very rare) while a fuse will always burn when overloaded or if a short circuit occurs.

Thank you 😢

Hey like your elegant explained Video. Since when Builders stop using fuses to build a house？

Good work :) learned so much .. have obe question can i use a 240v 1cm wide wire for bigger items such as 1400w hallogen lamp? Or will it melt because its too much of a power

This is the first MCB that I have seen that is purely thermal not thermal magnetic as described. reducing its usefulness in short circuit conditions as it would operate slower and is less able to extinguish the arc.

Many years ago our family had round fuse's - but when they were replaced so many times when they burned out so we bought a round fuse which was a circuit breaker fuse - when the fuse burned out we had to press the stem to reset the fuse .

I just moved in to my new apt. It's a old multi-unit house and then I saw the fuzes. In Canada.

Mine is an old panel. Are they safe enough ? Should I upgrade it to a new one? It's expensive

Interesting to see that old types of USA fuses. Never seen those before while they look like they have a long history.

"too much resistance" : I think he meant to say to much current causes the metal tab to heat up and melt.

Are there stoppers you can put in an empty fuse socket?

If you have dead fuse box break it open and cut out the silver contacts with shears. There is also silver you can get out of TV relays and light switches.

How mucy does it cost to upgrade it to the new panel ?

So I had a short putting on a lamp in my old house. Several outlets and the next room light won’t turn on. I have a fuse box inside and a breaker box outside. Could the fix be replacing the fuses? At least a first step.

This was on tv a while ago

I don’t see the main circuit in my breaker box there’s an extension though a small box with two fuses wondering if that’s a main breaker in an old house.

As a kid I remember people would use pennies in place of fuses.

My fuse is giving a spark I can’t se the spark I can hear it I just got a new washer and dryer it a LG what should I do it never happened until that huge flood in New Jersey what should I do I need it to connect to the breaker should I get an electrician Disturb

For all you "internet professionals" this video isnt for you.... its for the basic homeowner and a little bit of history. The channel Warped Perception did a badass slow mo video of a circuit breaker tripping in amazing quality...

can you use a regular circuit breaker to a gfci receptacle?

How does a push button fuse work (light bulb style one)

Wow, long time since I have seen a Fusestat! 👍 😁

have yall come across knob and tube in a house before?

I always thought once it tripped, you had to turn it off to reset it before turning it on?

boy oh boy..could I use some Electrical help. I live in a house built 1968..all aluminum wiring. Various places throughout the house just stopped working. I've checked the circuit breakers...none were tripped. I guess it is possible that the wires pooped out. If that's the case, then there is fire risk..I would imagine. Is the only solution to rewire the house? How long does that take and how expensive would it be? 3Br 2bath single level house. I know that the housing codes have changed around here in the last 15 years..and I think I would need to re-do the wiring in order to be up to code to sell it.

Don't fool yourself about circuit breakers, they are mechanical devices prone to mechanical issues, especially the hardening of grease in the breaker used for lubrication of the mechanical linkages. This is why it is important that when you change the batteries in you smoke detector, go around and exercise the breakers and trip your GFCI's to ensure they are working.

If the breaker trips shouldn’t you figure out why it did before you reset it

jumped over the federal zinco box

Howie Mandel grew up and became an Electrician.

Fun fact I almost burned down my sisters garage because I tried to fix a fuse box and I didn’t know what I was doing and an electrician came and looked at it and said it could have caused a fire

Like 🚂

Less Resistance causes a fuse to blow. error

The American flag in the background is hanging incorrectly; the blue field “union” should be in the upper-left as the flag is viewed from the front.

Wait... I thought Scott was done at ATOH?

the problem with circuit breakers is that when they repeatedly trip some people tape them in the ON position

That's not true... Every circuit breaker has two types of tripping conditions. First is thermal, when current is slightly grater than nominal for long time (shown on video). Second is electromagnetic, it trips when short-circuit occurs and it's very fast. High current goes on coil that pulls the tripping mechanism. Of course I'm talking about basic CB not RCD's or others. Btw, in Europe we use RCD for whole house, not only in one or two sockets. And we use 230V so same cable can provide two times much power.

fuses are safer than breakers..if people were not stupid doing the penny trick or installing wrong sizes and burning the house down we would probably be still using them.

Who else here wanted to see that metal strip disintegrate in the old glass fuse...

This bit just seemed like Scott found an old fuse panel and wanted to show it off versus actually wanting to help homeowners with their breakers. I say this because fuses are only a small percentage of houses today and every house in the last 10 years has had arc fault breakers in some parts (and now for all branch circuits) which trip not only because of being overloaded or shorted but also a variety of other less dramatic reasons. Not only that, no mention was made that when breakers trip,they don't go all the way to the off position and would be in the middle. He could have easily demonstrated a tripped breaker and how to reset it.

hmmmm i always thought a penny in a fuse was cheaper than buying a new one!!! ;-)

sans song

Throw in a penny

not nerd vibing in the comment section

LOL too much resistance

Second view and first comment !!

Breakers are NOT an improvement. Breakers have problems too. Easy for someone to switch to a larger capacity breaker. They have many moving parts, which makes them MUCH MORE unreliable than a properly sized fuse.. if a homeowner doesn't investigate the cause of the breaker tripping, and repeatedly resets the breaker, it can start nuisance tripping at a much lower amperage than it's rating. Worse, the worn parts can HANG, and NOT trip, in response to an overload, and cause a fire or damage equipment. IT DOES HAPPEN. The restriction fuse bases prevented people from putting in over-rated fuses. But people are ignorant, and stuff in foil. So the government mandated inferior protection. - "fool proof". So people like me, in engineering for 39 years, have to pay the insurance company a premium to keep our superior protection. Incidentally, did you know the government doesn't even allow the use of breakers in medical electronic equipment? That's because even the best breaker, being a much more complex device than a fuse, sometimes fails to trip when presented with an overload, and damages the equipment.

It's weird how they speak so the average american dude can understand while here in EU the "average stefan" has been stealing electricity since east Germany 😂😂

My first ever thumb-down at any TOH video; the latest circuit breaker is more relevant yet only briefly described it, even with a cut-off view of the breaker, it was sloppily described... Well there is always the 1st.

Incorrect explanation on basic electrical theory.

Our german System is better than this...

That was bad info. You should have mentions RCD’s ie residual current devices that protect the householder from fatal electric shock. Your video was far too lacking in actually what a circuit boards first priority was. Please delete it