If you’ve ever been frustrated while searching for the correct switch to turn off, this electrician’s circuit breaker hack may be for you.
Nate the Electrician (@nate_the_electrician) hosts a TikTok account dedicated to home electrical knowledge. A tip he posted on Aug. 8 has gone viral. And it’s so simple you may ask yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
As of this writing, the hack has over 1.4 million views and counting.
The circuit breaker hack
The circuit breaker hack is simplicity itself.
Nate shows himself performing the hack in the brief six seconds of the video.
“Here’s an electrician tip for you,” he tells his viewers. “If you write the breaker number on the back of the [outlet] cover plate, you know which breaker to turn off every time.”
He displays the plastic cover plate of the outlet in question, showing that he has written the number 13 on the back.
He then places the cover back over the outlet, the number hidden behind the plate.
A follow-up video shows viewers that they can also write the breaker number directly onto the outlet.
@nate_the_electrician This Tip Saves Alot Of Time! #fyp #electriciantips #tip #trick #bluecollar #electriciansoftiktok #bluecollarboys⚡️ #electricianhack #construction #breaker #foryoupageofficial #fypviral #homeownertips #electriciansdoitbetter #hack #breakertracer ♬ original sound – Nate The Electrician⚡️
What is a circuit breaker?
While the circuit breaker hack is undoubtedly useful, some readers may be confused about what a circuit breaker is.
Your house or apartment definitely has one. The essential device protects all the electrical circuits in your home from overloading and causing a fire.
“Whenever electrical wiring in a building has too much current flowing through it, these simple machines cut the power until somebody can fix the problem,” according to How Stuff Works.
A breaker box in your home may contain several circuit breakers, each of which has a switch that will flip off if an overload occurs. Once the cause of an overload is corrected, the breaker can be switched back on.
Jake’s hack enables you to remember which switch to turn on or off for a given circuit.
How to find the correct circuit breaker
There are a few ways to figure out which breaker goes to which circuit in your house.
You can turn on all the lights and some appliances in your house. Then note which of them turns off after flipping a breaker.
If you have a friend, partner, or spouse able to help, one of you can stand at the box and flip the breakers. The other person can wait in a given area to not when the lights turn off.
The best and most reliable method is to buy a circuit breaker finder. This device features a box that plugs into any outlet and a sensor.
Passing the sensor over the correct breaker causes it to light up.
Some viewers are skeptical
One viewer asked, “Why don’t they teach us this when we first started?”
However, some viewers were skeptical about the circuit breaker hack.
Bugsy Jr. (@bugsyjunior) pointed out the hack would only work, saying, “Until the painters show up!…”
“Works good til the painters remove all the plates and throw em in a bag and lose half the screws,” another viewer agreed.
One person commented, “Then you have to take the plate off every time, just label the breaker panel.”
However, Nate responded, “I rarely find a panel schedule in older homes that’s accurate good luck with that.”
Update: Nate told the Daily Dot that he hopes his video “helped all the homeowners out there.”
“I enjoy making videos to help people with electrical,” he added.
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