|
Posted by RBM on February 3, 2008, 8:25 pm
Sounds like you've got it under control. You would use a double pole breaker
if you had two 120 volt circuits feeding the same outlet, which would be
split top and bottom
>
>> Find first, what each cable is feeding, then it may make sense. Post back
>
> I don't think it helps. The breaker feeds only overhead lights and
> 120V outlets. Specifically, I count:
>
> 5 overhead lights
> 1 outdoor flood light
> 14 120V outlets
>
> Two of those outlets are on the ceiling in a shop area and power 120V
> fluorescent lights. Two others power the two garage door openers.
>
>> Also, you should have 4 white wires you haven't mentioned. You have
>> 4-12/2 circuits leaving the panel. Right?
>
> 4 12/2 cables tied to the two double-pole breakers. Each cable's
> neutral goes to the neutral bar, and their grounds go to the ground
> (which are separate since this is a subpanel).
>
> Here's a part I didn't mention yet, but the more I look the more this
> seems like the answer. What is leading me to investigate these is I
> see that at some point previously the central A/C installers tied the
> a/c power onto these breakers by sticking their wires under the
> terminals with the existing ones (big no-no). Of course these devices
> are 240V so they need a 2-pole breaker. I already know that these a/c
> installers were utterly incompetent crooks, so I'm now thinking that
> they went to the trouble of replacing the single pole breakers with 2-
> pole so that they could feed the 240V, but of course didn't find
> breaker space for what they needed and instead double-tapped the
> breaker. This might account for the 30A rating on that breaker as
> well, although other A/C units are tied to 20A breakers, so who
> knows. I could see these guys just putting in a breaker until it
> didn't trip it and saying that was good enough.
>
> The reason I'm investigating all of this is so that I can fix it all
> -- move the a/c's to their own 2-pole breakers, consolidate other
> circuits as needed.
>
> I wanted to ask about whether there was a realistic need for a 2-pole
> breakers on individual 120V circuits and given your answers, I think
> my guess above is probably what led to this fiasco. Now I need to
> find out what the proper amperage rating is for the a/c units and fix
> all of this.
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap