OT – House Electrical Circuit Question

JD
In the average home most power circuits are only rated as 10 amp, this means that the total load on any circuit can only amount to 10 A. They have a 16 amp breaker in them so that they don't over heat and trip if you are continually running devices at or near the 10 A maximum of the circuit.
If you want to run a 15 amp device, which will have the larger earth pin on the plug you will (legally) need to have a 15 amp circuit wired in from the fuse box. This circuit will have a 20 amp cicuit breaker fitted for the same reasons.
For the sake of your safety it would be worth getting the wiring in question xhecked out to see if it can be upgraded to 15 amps , if it is the heavier gauge wiring then it will only be a cheap and simple matter of changing the GPO's (power poiunts) and the circuit breaker to 15 amp rated equipment.
I'm not an A-grade sparky but in the work I do, I unfortunately get to see a few customers who thought that by changing the 15 A plug to a 10 A one they could save themselves a few bucks....
!5 amp plugs are usually on devices for a good reason, so I would be definately getting your shed's power supply checked before trying to run a high current device off a 10 A outlet.

Brian

What Brian (Montrose, Vic.) said above is very very good advice!!

cheers

Brian (Gold Coast)

JD,

Some welders will run off a 10 amp circuit They come from the factory with a 10 amp plug fitted.
I have a CIG (BOC) brand arc welder that only requires a 10 amp circuit.

Another alternative is a mig welder which in "domestic" grades, also generally run off a 10 amp circuit.

Bill.

Jdwynn,
"Normal" house hold/domestic power circuits are protected with a 16A MCB, some are 20A, this is due to a lot of different factors such as volt drop (length of run) de-rating for insulation around cable etc... Circuit Breaker (MCB) is to protect wiring only, and due to the impractibility of having each point on its own circuit the MCB rating is higher than the rating of the power point which is as stated above only 10Amps whether it is a single or double point. 15Amp points would generally have a 20Amp MCB and depending on de-rating and volt drop sometimes a bigger cable (4.0mm2) 15Amp points are also on their own circuit as well, not like the 10Amp circuits which can have up to 16 sockets (currently) counting a double as 2.
Do you have a small sub board in your shed? if so a 15Amp point could be wired from this, quick way to tell if circuit to shed is capable is to check meter box/main switch board for the size of the MCB on the shed circuit or as stated look for a sub board in shed.
Sometimes customers don't want to spend the extra money to run a 32 Amp circuit and fit sub board to a shed and therefore only have a "Normal" Power point circuit installed to cover a couple of power points and a couple of lights, this is fine unless they decide to in the future to try and do some welding etc. in there and find they don't have enough amps to run it.

hope this adds some clarity for you regardless of which welder you decide on.

Shane