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What Are Blown Fuses?
For the electrical safety of your house, you must learn to understand what fuses and their functions are. A fuse acts as a type of protection for short circuits and circuit overloads of the electrical wiring in your home, so that there is no electrical fire. A circuit breaker also provides protection and its rating like the fuse depends on the maximum amount of amps it is designed to trip. Both bear the markings of the amperage rating.
The standard sizes of fuses include 15-, 20- and 30- amps. This is the screw-in variety which screws into the socket. The specialized Edison based fuses have a smaller screw-in base which is called a rejection base. A right size fuse has therefore to be fitted into its type of base. Hence a 30-amp fuse will not fit into a 20-amp Edison base. Different fuses naturally protect different wire sizes.
The fuse blows when there is overloading of a circuit, and this prevents breaking and burning of wires. To solve this electrical problem, it is best to lighten the load on the circuit by disconnecting some of the electrical gadgets connected to it.
Fuse failure can be caused by electrical shorts, which can occur from two sides, from the hot wire to ground or a hot wire to neutral. But in both cases the fuse is opened and the circuit is shut off. It is important to tackle this complicated problem by tracing the root cause, by checking all appliances, cords and lighting which are connected to it.
When you check connections and cords, each item should be unplugged individually to check the source of the problem. It is a time-consuming process, and if you are unable to locate the problem, call a professional electrician to locate the shorted circuit.