Can 15 Amp Outlets Be Used On A 20 Amp Circuit Breaker

if you look in your electrical panel the most common circuit breaker that you most likely will find is 120 volt 20 amp breakers but then if you go around your house and look at all the different outlets you might see that these are actually 15 amp outlets so how does that actually make sense and specifically let's touch on a few items first is that code compliant what does the code say what does the code allow two what about from a safety or fire hazard standpoint just inherently having 15 amp components on a 20 amp circuit seems like that wouldn't be a good idea and then number three and our final item is what kind of appliance actually is going to pull more than 15 amps or what are the different scenarios you need to look out for we have our 20 amp circuit i'm assuming you have 12 gauge wire running throughout that circuit and then the question is what does code say for 15 or 20 amp receptacles or what i usually call outlets specifically you want to reference nec210.21b or if you're like me maybe you have something like the black and decker complete guide to wiring this one specifically is over about 10 years old you see that with the dvd that was included at the time but is pretty much of no use now but black decker does update this is the latest every three years when nec updates so does the complete guide and if you look below all of our videos you'll see the link to our amazon store which is the complete and always updated list of tools supplies and reference materials like the black decker complete guide to wiring in the electrical section if you scroll past all the wago lever nuts which you know i highly recommend you will find this complete guide and for under twenty dollars you need to get a paperback like i have or you can get the kindle version for even less so just like 210.21b on page 93 of the black decker complete guide it reads use either 15 or 20 amp receptacles on 20 amp circuits with multiple receptacles and that multiple receptacles is key if you had a 20 amp circuit only one receptacle that would need to be 20 amp other than that when you have multiple receptacles you can use 15 or 20 amp and you're going to be meeting code moving on to that second item and that is just from a safety or overloading standpoint 15 amp component on a 20 amp circuit sounds like that would be an issue and this is the most common feedback i'll get from the audience is that you would not want to do that because it's going to be overloaded that's the most common feedback i get so let's expand on that a little bit from a baseline perspective if you've seen some of my older content you know i've actually opened up a lot of different outlets and yeah i'm switching back to using outlets opposed to receptacles i've looked at residential grade i've looked at commercial grade i've looked at multiple levels into industrial and into even audiophile like the highest most expensive type of outlet out there i've looked at different brands eaton leviton legrand and even hubble and the one thing that i've learned from that is a residential grade outlet like this a 15 amp residential grade outlet i do not use these are the cheapest these are in most new homes that is what most builders and even some professionals if you don't request specifically they're going to use the cheapest stuff which is a residential grade 15 amp outlet i don't use that even though that 15 amp would be allowed by code i don't think it's a smart decision for an extra dollar or dollar fifty or maybe just a little bit more per outlet you should step up to the commercial grade so let's look at an example from legrand comparing their 15 amp to the 20 amp commercial grade outlet and show you why i do not think it's a safety hazard or a fire hazard to use 15 amp outlets in a 20 amp circuit so here's an example of a 15 amp and a 20 amp legrand commercial grade i've just taken the pins out of the back yokes here so i can pop off these fronts so we can see internally what's going on i've looked at a couple of these over the years specifically from this brand and things actually changed just a little bit but this still holds true that in terms of the thickness of the overall internals the isolation with the non-metallics between your hot and neutral sides so this would be your hot side your hot prong coming in your neutral prong and your ground your side screw terminals your plates in there if you're using back wiring so this being the 20 amp this being your 15 amp there's just not enough difference there has been actually a little bit of cost reduction you'll see on this neutral side here a small piece of metal was removed for the 15 amp which was not needed the interesting thing is that's actually changed a little bit this one's about a year and a half old and this actually was a 15 amp legrand exactly the same model as this and it was a mirror image of the 20. absolutely nothing different between the two designs so even though it looks like we have done a little cost reduction which makes sense from a manufacturer the input costs have went up so how do you keep the price the same well you strip it down a little bit so this is similar to what i've seen in other brands that these internals on the 15 amp side are just not going to be more prone to failure compared to the 20 amp that's just my opinion and from what i've seen looking at the materials used the thickness and the overall design so that second item from my opinion i do not think a 15 amp is a fire hazard especially if you follow the same approach i do and use only commercial grade now what appliances would actually use more than 15 amps right go up to that 20 amp capability and honestly it's not that common you could have some appliances around your kitchen or the two things that i've seen in the past and dealt with is a 120 volt air conditioner through the window air conditioner more than 18 000 btu of capacity and that one did have a 20 amp plug on it i don't know if that's even common these days but today what i run into is every once in a while when i rent an electric jackhammer to break out a concrete driveway or some sidewalk that jackhammer might have a 20 amp plug like this where you actually do have the horizontal neutral prong which would only allow it to go into a 20 amp outlet and the thing i would look out for is some of those jackhammers do come with a converter that converts that 20 amp plug into something that could go into a 15 amp plug such as this little converter would allow you to do so you could take your 20 amp plug you could place that within this converter and now you can take an appliance or something that would actually draw more than 15 amps or has the potential to and then you plug that into a 15 amp outlet now you still have a 20 amp breaker you still have 12 gauge wire running throughout your circuit and if you use commercial grade you're probably not going to have any issues because the internals are actually the same i would just say that's not best practice and for most homeowners you're really not going to run into the scenario very often if ever so those are the three items and now hopefully you have a lot more information you're more educated when it comes to 15 and 20 amp outlets on a 20 amp circuit and before you take off don't forget to subscribe to our channel it's been over 100 videos since i've asked you to subscribe to the channel but only about six percent of our viewers are subscribed and once you subscribe you're going to be more likely to see other videos within the 300 video library we have on youtube and we continue to add to on a weekly basis now if you want to dive deeper between residential and commercial grade outlets check out this video right here that was kind of the start of me looking internally to these components and what helped me inform my decisions over time so thanks for joining me on this video and we'll catch you on that next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 506,605

Keywords: national electrical code 2020, wiring an outlet, electrical basics, everyday home repairs

Id: u1LZfIV9GBs

Length: 8min 13sec (493 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 31 2022