re: So I just replaced all my 15A outlets with 20A...but realized most breakers are 15A

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ll the electrical circuits in your home are rated to handle a certain amount of electrical flow (amps). When too many amps flow through a circuit, the wires overheat and can catch surrounding materials (like insulation) on fire.

Luckily, your circuit breaker detects when there’s too much electrical flow and “trips” (breaks the circuit).

For example, let’s say you have a circuit with wiring rated to handle 15 amps. To protect all the wiring in that circuit, a 15-amp circuit breaker is installed. And if more than 15 amps flows through the circuit, the breaker trips.

The tripping breaker is not the problem, but a sign that you have a problem somewhere that could cause your wires to overheat and start a fire.

Now let’s say you decided to upgrade that 15-amp breaker to a 20-amp breaker. You’ll now have a circuit breaker that will allow up to 20 amps of electricity to wiring that is only rated to be safe up to 15 amps.

See the problem? You’re creating a fire hazard!

Sure, the breaker is less likely to trip. But it’s at the expense of damaging your home and putting your family at risk.

That’s not a tradeoff you want to make.

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i love this place. Thank you!

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you stupid frick

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Give the man a break. Not everyone understands electricity. Give him credit for asking for advice when he knows he's not an expert. I'm sure he's versed in shite that you don't know the first thing about.

Summer is coming, replace them all with these:

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So I just replaced all my 15A outlets with 20A...but realized most breakers are 15A

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You're fine.

Your outlets will never see 20A since you are protected upstream at 15A. Now, if you had 20A breakers with 15A outlets, you then could have issues, but only if you're constantly drawing more than 15A through that outlet.

on a related note; the 'cheap' 15a outlets were 10/$5. the ones I bought were 10/$20.

the difference is amazing. i would never go back to the shitty $5 outlets.

If you have to sell your house and the inspector has even the slightest clue about the NEC, you'll get dinged for them. The chances of anyone actually plugging in a 20A appliance is small but the code is designed to prevent that from happening anyway. By putting in 20A receptacles you've created the potential since now it's possible to plug in a 20A appliance on your 15A branch circuits.

As someone else noted, if you have 14 ga wire anywhere in the house you need the 15A breakers (not 20A) or you will be
A. Not Code compliant and
B. Creating a very real fire hazard
So unless you can confirm that ALL your wire is 12AWG copper, I would highly recommend not going that route.

About twisting the wire: you could just use pliars but the better answer is that when you buy outlets just get the 'preferred' tier outlets that have the little plate you can slip the wires under instead of twisting around the screw. As it stands right now, the 15A breaker should still protect your wires, and should trip off if you plug in some giant load that needs a 20A plug. Honestly there's nothing physically stopping you from putting more than 15A on a duplex receptacle anyway, you would just have to plug into both outlets (or multiple outlets on the same circuit). The breakers are designed to protect against this scenario so having 20A outlets really isn't adding much additional risk.

And lastly, what you don't want to hear: even though you didn't add much more risk, the right thing to do is to get the right outlets and reinstall them. Live and learn.

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So unless you can confirm that ALL your wire is 12AWG copper, I would highly recommend not going that route.

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i dont have a tool to measure it, but i can tell you the wire is IMPOSSIBLE to bend and even more of a PITA to get the outlet back into the wall.

most of my outlets have 4 wires and a ground (2 white, 2 black) so after switching them to the new outlet, getting it back into the wall was a challenge.

the wire is also too big to fit into the 'little' black holes on the cheapo outlets. it was on the existing outlets twisted around the screws and damn near impossible to get off without taking the screws COMPLETELY off.

iow its super thick, stiff wire.

The breaker controls the circuit.

Check your breaker panel you may already have a 15 amp breaker.

No worries