Let’s say you want to brighten up a dark room. You purchase a bright 100-watt incandescent light bulb, but when you go to screw the first bulb into your lamp, you notice it has a warning label that says “Maximum 60 Watts.”
“Well,” you think, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
The short answer: a home fire. And even if the bulb is removed before a fire starts, the overloaded current can do permanent damage to your wiring.
Let’s take a closer look on why this is: