How many appliances/how much electric can I use at once?

Phil3822

Hi all, I have economy 7 in my home and I am worried that using to many appliances including my storage heaters and immersion would or could overload the system. I am wondering if this is possible and would like to learn more about it.

For info during the 7 hour cheaper period currently all our storage heaters are on as well as the immersion for our hot water. We also have the washing machine on then the dishwasher and the tumble dryer is also often on at the same time as one of the above appliances.

Am I risking things using all the electric at once?

Thanks all.

fluffpot

It should have been designed to take account of this. If there were any problems then your fuses would blow/circuits trip because of overload.

DVardysShadow

If your wiring is up to scratch, the most you would do is blow a fuse or trip a circuit breaker. If you don't overload any one circuit, it is still possible to blow the company fuse if you have enough circuits which are themselves correctly loaded. As a guide, look at the fuse holder where the main feeds the meter. This is usually 60A or 100A. You can run 1kW load for every 4A. So 15kW or 25kW max in the house at any one time.

Phil3822

Thanks both for your comments. Makes more sense although I know very little of this subject at all. I have an older fuse box with those large looking fuses. They look like normal plug fuses only much bigger. Have had to replace one once in the last 3 years of living here.

ormus

overloading a ring main in a domestic house is virtually unheard of.
you would have to have some large power appliances plugged into (nearly) every socket.
ie a lot of electric fires.