What a Circuit Breaker is and how it Works, sort of

So, you are curious about what a circuit breaker is and how it works. Ok, so, there are a few things that you initially need to know about circuit breakers, to give you an idea of what they are and what they do. First up, a circuit breaker is piece of equipment that can be found in an industrial, commercial or residential building. They are usually out of sight, but concealed inside the breaker box where all the electrical fuses live. The fuses are what helps to distribute the electricity around your building to make your lights go on, your coffee maker work and anything that you plug into the power outlet. Otherwise, you could plug your coffee maker in all day long and nothing would happen.

Electricity

There is a sort of running order to how we get our coffee maker to spring into action.  Let’s go backward to figure out how it all comes together. You put the filter in the top, followed by the grounds and the water. Then, you plug it in and expect it to bubble away until the perfect cup of wake-up juice is ready. However, what happens behind the scenes is actually the key, and that is the electrical sequence of events. Firstly, when you plug your coffee maker the metal prongs make contact with the ‘open’ circuit of electricity that constantly flows to your outlet. When the contact is made the electricity surges through from the source in much the same way as water surges along the hosepipe as soon as you turn the water on. Let’s suppose that the cord in your coffee maker has developed a fault but you are not aware of this. You suddenly hear small cracking sound and maybe the lights in your kitchen go out. What do you do? Ok, good answer, nip to the breaker box and see if a fuse has blown.

Sure enough there is a switch facing the wrong direction. This switch is known as a breaker switch and the only time they need to flip off is if your ITE circuit breaker has detected a fault and automatically shut off that portion of your power supply. If the problem is with the coffee maker, flip the switch back on but unplug the coffee maker and get a new one.