Tank Power

[sphelps]

In terms of what your circuit can handle, watts is not a good unit to use as any device will be rated in true power rather than apparent. In other words depending on the power factor of the device the amount of power drawn into the circuit will be higher than what the actual device uses. Same goes if you use a kilowatt meter measuring watts. What you need to measure is volt-amps or just amps, especially for pumps as they often have low power factors, sometimes as low as 0.5 meaning they draw twice as much power as there rating.

House hold circuits are 15amps unless in the kitchen which newer homes will have 20amps circuits there. Easy to tell by looking at the outlets:


Safe load for a circuit is 80% capacity so for a 15 amp circuit you wouldn't want to exceed 12 amps total. So to find out if you're safe or not you'll need to add up all devices on the entire circuit, preferably in amps not watts.