Question

Why are the outlets in homes never wired in series? What problems might this present?

Answer 1

Answer:

It would be more uncomfortable to use electricity in your house as all the outlets must be connected to appliances so the electricity can flow.

Explanation:

Series circuits in real-life

Time ago christmas lights  were wired in series, it means  electricity flowed in one single way through all the bulbs. The problem was when one of those many bulbs stopped working because it interrupmted the only path for eletricity and all the bulbs turned off as only one of them is broken. Very annoying, isn't it? Now lets repeat the example imagining the outlets of your livingroom connected in series. Let say you have 4 outlets connected in series. The main problem is that each one of those outlets works as a broken bulb as long as no appliance is connected because electricity must flow from the first outlet to appliance and then it will go to the second outlet and so on until reaching the 4th outlet and the 4th appliance. It works that way because there is only one way for electriciy to flow through the 4 outlets. pretty unpractical, isn't it? let see a better solution

Parallel outlets

The good thing about parallel outlets is that they are directly connected to the power supply and the only element that is necessary to let the electricity fllow is  the appliance. Each outlet is part of a different way (a different circuit) so you can manage your outlets separately. Attached you will find a picture to ilustrate this better. Remember that each outlet in series works exactly like a broken bulb. If you have any doubts, just let me know.

Answer 2

A series circuit means that there is only one current. Which means that everything is sharing that one wire. Homes are normally wired with a parallel circuit, which means that there is more than one current running through the house. If you have a series, if you turn on one thing for example a light switch, than everything will turn on with it. But of you have  a parallel you can turn on everything one by one, and save energy.

Trust me. I just took my semester test in physical science this morning, and I passed. This is exactly what we learned. <span />