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Electricity Made
Easy, All About, Volts, AMPS and BTUs, |
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Electricity is a form of energy and is the flow of electrons.
All matter is made up of atoms, and an atom has a center, called
a nucleus. The nucleus contains positively charged particles
called protons and uncharged particles called neutrons.
But
were not in high school any more, there will be no test, so were
going to make it easy.
When Buying An
Electric Heater, The Necessary Voltage & Wattage / BTUs need to be
factors in your consider because
if you wire a 240
volt heater to a 120 volt circuit, you will only get about ¼ or
25% of the wattage the heater was designed to deliver.
And vice versa if you
wire a 120 volt heater to a 240 volt circuit the heater
will overheat and the heater will be destroyed! The heater will
try to deliver four times its rated wattage, causing the element
& motor permanent damage.
Electricity is to home electrical circuits
as water is to home plumbing systems. You will hear a lot of
electricians make the analogy or refer to electricity in the
sense its like water flowing down a hose or pipe.
Electricity is brought in
to the home through power lines in a standard
Volts or Voltage
Most residential homes in the
You may of also heard
of: 110 volts, 115 volts,
125 volts – they’re the
same as 120 volts
& 220 volts, 230
volts, , 250 – they’re the same as 240 volts.
Most household fixtures use 120 volts. Large items such as
ranges or dryers require 240 volts.
Over the years the
power companies have been raising the voltage to your home) Voltage is the force (or potential
force) behind the electrons as they move through the circuit. Voltage can be thought of as the force or
the push that gets the electrons moving thought a conductor or
wire. I like to think of it as how much water can fit in a hose.
Volts don't flow by themselves – they are drawn from a
Voltage and Wire Size and How They Relate The amount of power (voltage) is that goes
through a wire is directly proportionate to the wire size.
The greater the need of
power the thicker the wire needed.
A firefighter would not put out a fire with a garden
house. What
is Amperage or Amps Amperage is the amount of electrical
current flowing in the circuit Amperage draws that amount of electricity
from the voltage in the circuit. A small electrical appliance
like a toaster usually needs less power than a larger appliance
such as a refrigerator.
Every heater works at different amperage rates.
A 500 watt 120 volt
heater will draw 4.17 amps of power; a 1500 Watt 120 Volt heater
will draw 12.5 amps. Amperage must be controlled in order to
protect the electrical lines from overheating or
short-circuiting.
To figure out how many amps an appliance uses divide the
watts by the voltage. What Is Wattage Or A Watt? Wattage
is the amount of power, or a measure of the amount of work done
by a certain amount or amperage of electric current at a certain
pressure or voltage. A watt is a measurement of total electrical
power. Volts x amps = watts. A measure of power or the rate of
energy consumption by an electrical device when it is in
operation, calculated by multiplying the voltage at which an
appliance operates by the current it draws (
What is a
A
1
watt = approximately 3.41 Btu/hour |