When things get cold, we move inside and the space heaters, heated blankets and layers come out. Using these heated items puts a bit of strain on a home’s electrical system, and if you’re not careful it can become a big problem. Protect your home from overload and safely plug your comfort items into smart plugs with the tips we’ve gathered here.
Many people turn to smart plugs as a way to improve energy efficiency via timers and other smart features. Our CNET study on energy bills shows that 70% of US adults are doing things to improve their energy efficiency at home. In my years of testing portable power stations and other energy monitoring devices, I’ve learned that anything that heats or cools requires serious power. This means that when you plug in your heaters and blankets to ward off the chill of winter, you may want to know the ability of your smart plug.
Home electrical system basics
Your home’s electrical panel is full of breakers designed to handle specific electrical loads to keep your homes appliances running smoothly and safely.
A Kasa smart plug is a flexible way to schedule your grow light.
Just as you need to know what you’re plugging into extension cords and power strips, the same goes for your smart plugs. Most space heaters, including those on our best space heater list, have a max wattage rating of 1,500. It’s important to be aware how much electricity an appliance will draw and the circuit, breaker, you are connecting it to.
For example, your 1,000-watt microwave is plugged into a circuit with a 20-amp breaker and you then plug in your space heater, there is a risk of overloading that circuit if both appliances are running at the same time.
Looking back at the chart from earlier, all those 15-amp smart plugs match up well with the 15- and even 20-amp breakers your home uses. However, smart plugs aren’t as durable as the hardwired outlets in your home’s walls. “A 15-amp device is capable of handling 1,800 watts, but a device with that much wattage should only be run at that level for short periods, three hours at the most,” Rhoades says.
“If the load you plan on plugging into a 15-amp device exceeds 1,500 and will run for a sustained period, it should stick to a max of around 80% of that full load, which comes to 1,440 watts.”
