How does the AC come in to my home breaker box & distributed?

Question

Is there a normal, general way that the wiring is distributed from breaker box to house? How can I tell which outlets & lights that each wires run & what order?

Answer 1

What country are you in? ssup's answer is for UK or other place, and does NOT apply to the US. (The loop method would be against the national electrical code in the US, and not everything has ground fault protection).

I'm not sure why you are asking, if I understand your question. There is no "normal" way wires are run from point to point. Generally electrician's will use the easiest route, not necessarily the shortest route. Everyone will choose which outlets to put on which circuit in a different way.

A simple way to "map" which outlets are on which circuit breaker is to turn off each circuit breaker one at a time and test what gets turned off by it. That won't tell you the "order" or the route of the wires, but I'm not sure why you care what that is anyway. I could probably help if I knew why you were asking.

If this doesn't tell you what you want to know, ask a more specific question.

Answer 2

the utility cable enters your distribution panel (breaker box), is metered, and then is split into different circuits depending on what it will be used for, with a different rated breaker or fuse for each type.

when electricians fit out ur house, they use a ring loop circuit to wire each of the outlets in a section of ur house. in this way the total current draw is split evenly through both sides of the loop, increasing the effective cross sectional area of the cable. the order of the outlets will follow a logical order around ur house but there is no practical way to find out without climbing into ur crawl space or basement and having a look.

wall outlets are always wired on different circuits to lighting circuits due to the differences in current draw, wall outlets are also always protected by a earth leakage detection device that prevents electrocution.

appliances such as ur hvac system, electric hot water, electric stove/oven/dishwasher have dedicated circuits/breakers because they are fixed appliances and generally draw more current then most other appliances.

do not attempt to alter, add or remove any electrical circuits or breakers - leave this to qualified electricians.

Answer 3

You probably should NOT mess with it till you know what you are doing.

You could read a book. There are 3 wires into the house and it sometimes gets wired as 220V AC. with all the wires. Learn about hot , neutral and ground. You could trip the fuses to see what turns off to see what fuses do what.

BE REALLY CAREFUL, maybe get a testor or a voltmeter