Hmm been running a ovem 15 years on a breaker that is too small

[melweezo]

Up front, I have learned more about electricity in the last year than I have in the other 52 years of my life.
So my GE Dual Fuel oven's ignitor has gone out and I went online to see how to fix it. While looking things up, I see that the oven needs a 40 amp breaker. I go look at the breaker it is on and it is 20 amp.. Back in the day I never paid attention to that stuff, I just figured they made stuff to work. I do remember the breaker tripping twice over a decade ago but have not have any issues other than that.
What are your thoughts on my situation? Is it unsafe? My uneducated guess is that the oven can only draw as much electricity as the breaker will give. Is that right or am I out of my mind?
Thanks for any answer
Mike

 

[AC Power]

True, the oven will only draw what it needs. If it's been happy for 10yrs now, with only a few overloads, I'd leave it. Of course, you could put in a larger breaker (such as a 30amp), but you then would need to be sure the existing CU wiring is minimum #10AWG (for 30amps). There might be a reason why the original owner/builder put the range on a 20amp breaker. Being you've a dual-fuel range, naturally, much of the Btu energy is gas, thus, reducing the electrical demand. I'd leave it alone.

Good Luck

 

[He who knows]

Mel - this might not be the way it's supposed to be done in the USA, but I'll tell you what we do in the UK, because the "physics" is the same world-wide, and it will explain why your breaker has very rarely tripped.

Firstly, cooking appliances do not run flat-out all of the time - if they did your oven would become a pottery kiln. Once up to temperature, they cycle on and off, and don't draw current for long periods.

Secondly, they tend to have more than one heating element - either different ones in ovens(s) for different purposes, and/or multiple hob elements or zones, and it's rare to switch everything on at once.

So we use a concept called diversity , where loads like cooking appliances are assumed to need less than their apparent nominal consumption. The calculation is 10A + 30% of the remainder. So over here, a cooker which in theory is a maximum load of 40A would be assumed to be 10 + (30 x 0.3) = 19A, and so we too could put it on a 20A circuit.

As I said - the NEC may not allow it, but in practice your cookers work, and are used, like ours, so in practice your 20A breaker will hardly ever trip.

 

[AC Power]

"He who knows" is bang on right!

BTW - Here in North America, our code uses the term "demand" rather than "diversity".....both meaning the same thing I am understanding.