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You put the kettle on and the whole flat goes dark. Someone shouts. Somebody goes to reset the breaker.
It happens because a subscription in amps isn’t a monthly allowance — it’s a ceiling on what you may draw at any single moment. And that ceiling is lower than almost anyone realises.
On Lebanon’s 220 volts, a 5 amp subscription is 1,100 watts. For the entire home.
The only sum you need
Watts ÷ 220 = amps. That’s it. The wattage is printed on the back of every appliance.
Your ceiling, in watts
2.5 A = 550 W · 5 A = 1,100 W · 10 A = 2,200 W
That is the total for everything switched on together — not per room, not per socket.
What things actually draw
Figures for typical Lebanese households at 220 V. Check the label on yours — sizes vary.
| Appliance | Watts | Amps at 220V |
|---|---|---|
| LED bulb | 9 W | 0.04 A |
| Phone charger | 10 W | 0.05 A |
| WiFi router | 15 W | 0.07 A |
| Ceiling fan | 70 W | 0.3 A |
| Laptop | 65 W | 0.3 A |
| TV, 43 inch | 100 W | 0.45 A |
| Fridge, running | 150 W | 0.7 A |
| Fridge, the moment it starts | ~900 W | ~4 A for a second |
| Washing machine, cold wash | 500 W | 2.3 A |
| Microwave | 1,000 W | 4.5 A |
| Air conditioner, 1.5 HP | 1,300 W | 6 A |
| Iron | 1,400 W | 6.4 A |
| Kettle | 2,000 W | 9 A |
| Electric water heater | 2,000 W | 9 A |
Read that table again, slowly
A kettle is 9 amps. On a 5 amp subscription, one kettle is nearly double your entire ceiling. Same for the water heater. Same for the iron, once the fridge and lights are already on.
Which gives the short answer:
The rule of thumb
5 amps runs a household that is living. It does not run anything that heats.
Lights, fridge, TV, fans, phones, router, laptop — comfortably. Kettle, iron, water heater, air conditioner — no.
The part nobody warns you about
Anything with a motor — fridge, water pump, air conditioner — draws five to seven times its normal current for about a second when it starts.
So a fridge that sits happily at 0.7 amps will briefly pull four. If you were already near the ceiling, that spike is what trips you. It also explains the maddening part: it trips when you weren’t doing anything.
Stop guessing and measure one
Labels are optimistic and old appliances drift. A monitoring plug sits between the socket and the appliance and shows the real figure.
Start with whatever you suspect. Most people are surprised at least once.
Or watch the whole house at once
If you want the total rather than one appliance, a meter on the incoming line shows what the house is drawing at this moment — so you can see how close to the ceiling you actually run.
Living within the ceiling
- Never two heating things at once. Kettle or iron. Not both.
- Put the water heater on a switch and run it only on city power, where the ceiling is higher.
- Leave headroom for the fridge — about 4 amps of it, for one second, whenever it decides to start.
- Upgrading from 5 A to 10 A costs more every month, for ever. Measuring first is cheaper, and often enough.
See it working
SONOFF's own video — this is the meter that shows you your real draw.
Recommended together
Together: $18.00
The plug finds the appliance that is eating your amps. The switch lets you control that one thing from your phone, or time it for when there is room.
If you are already over
If the breaker trips daily and nothing above helps, you are genuinely on too small a subscription for the way your household lives — and that is worth knowing with numbers behind it before you pay for a bigger one.
These are part of our power meters and smart breakers, mostly genuine Sonoff, stocked in Lebanon. Tell us on WhatsApp what keeps tripping and we’ll help you work out which appliance it is — that costs nothing.
