You want to replace your toaster with a new one and want to see if it will not overwhelm the electrical outlet since you’ll be plugging it in the same socket as the microwave or some other appliance. How many amps does a toaster use?
A toaster uses anywhere from 5 to 10 AMPs depending on the voltage that it is using. In the United States of America, most outlets use 120v and amperage is calculated by dividing the watts with the voltage. This will give you the number of AMPs that the toaster draws.
Most kitchens have a circuit breaker load of 15 or 20 AMPs. What this means that if you were to plug in appliances that collectively exceed this total on the same receptacle circuit, the circuit breaker would be triggered.
You therefore need to make sure that your appliances can are in line with the load limit in AMPs. Alternatively, you need to make sure that you only use appliances that are collectively within the circuit breaker limit simultaneously.
What Are Amps?
You hear all the electrical terminology being thrown around and are sometimes confused at what it all means.
What exactly are amps and how do they relate to all other units of measurement that are used in relation to electricity and home appliances.
To get a better understanding of what it all means, let’s look at what volts are first. This is the unit of measurement that most of us are familiar with but do we truly understand what they are?
We see it on batteries that we buy at the store and on the appliances and gadgets we use every day but what exactly are volts?
Voltage simply means how strongly electric current is being pushed through a circuit. Think of them as the force with which electric current flows.
Watts are how much force with which electric current is being moved. The higher the wattage, the stronger the force. AMPs on the other hand are the measure of how much electrical current is flowing past a given point in one second.
In order to calculate the wattage that an appliance draws, you need to divide the watts with the volts, so the formula is: Watts/ Voltage = AMPs What does that mean in the real world? Let’s look at two different scenarios.
Scenario 1:
If you have an appliance which is rated 1100W and you are using it on an American socket which pushes out 110 Volts, 1100/110 = 10W. This means that the power rating for that appliance is 10AMPs.
Scenario 2:
If you take the same appliance and use it on a European or African outlet that pushes out twice the voltage of the American socket a 220 Volts that would be 1100/220 = 5 AMPs.
The amount of Amps drawn depends on the voltage being released. When you exceed the amperage limit on your power supply, it will overheat or burn.
That’s why you will have a separate power supply for your electric stove or oven. They pull higher amperage than all your other appliances in the kitchen.
When you have two or three different appliances using the same circuit, you need to make sure that they fall within the amperage limit.
They should not be used at the same time if they exceed the limit otherwise they will trigger the trip switch or in worst case scenarios damage the wall socket or appliance.
How Many AMPs Does a Toaster Use?
Let’s now look at how many AMPs a toaster pulls. The average for most toasters ranges from 5 to 10 AMPs with an average wattage of 2000W.
These figures depend on make and model as well as whether it’s a two or four slice toaster. When you are using your toaster in conjunction with other appliances such as a microwave and fridge on the same circuit, it’s not a good idea to use then all at the same time.
A fridge uses 15 to 20 amps on average while a microwave oven uses 10 Amps. You can see immediately that using either two of these appliances at the same time will not work out well.
If you are hard pressed as far as outlet points are concerned, you will need to put the fridge on one outlet and let the toaster and microwave share another.
The reason for this is that the fridge draws large amperage and it is also not good practice to regularly switch a fridge on and off.
You will significantly reduce its lifespan if you do that. The microwave and toaster, on the other hand, don’t need to be on all the time. They can be used interchangeably. You just need to make sure that they are not running at the same time or you risk damaging the wall socket or your appliance in the long run.
Conclusion on toaster amps
So, how many amps does a toaster use? If it’s a two slice toaster, you will expect it to use between 5 to 6 AMPs while a four slice toaster will use 9 to 10 amps.
If you are plugging in your toaster on a shared socket with another appliance, make sure that the ratings of the two appliances do not surpass the allowed amperage limit.
The sum of the amount of amperage that the two appliances pull has to be within the limit for them to be used at the same time. If, on the other hand, the combined total for the two appliances exceeds the allowed limit, only use one of the appliances at a time.