Burned Neutrals

The insulation on these neutral wires looks burned to me. How do they look to you?

Flipped the pic

I would say no. They just appear to be old.

I do see double taps on the neutrals and also ground and Neutral
No burnt wires though

OK, thanks, panel is pretty old and not only double tapped neutrals but 4-5 doubled breakers too.

Looks like the old braided NM with the asphalt like coating.

I agree with all of the above and will add, ti also appears to be a sub panel, in which case it’s improperly wired. If it’s service equipment (which I doubt), then that terminal needs to be bonded to the enclosure.

The problem with double tapped breakers is in fact the returns or the neutrals. They can potentially create a 240 volt return current because of the shared neutrals which is not the case with the positive(s) as they are originating from a separated load source.
At 600 degrees Fahrenheit the potential for fire is from the Neutrals.

You cannot take two 120 circuits off of one single pole breaker and create 240 volts returning. This is only possible with a MWBC that has lost it’s neutral.

Alternating current does not have positives and negatives. That is DC.

It was in fact the service panel. An older panel with many issues but I was looking for answers on the condition of these wires. Not my clients problem anymore as they desided to keep on looking.

Rick, could you explain this a little further? It seems somewhat confusing.

I would just let this one go Robert.

I believe he was referring to the case where you have a double tapped neutral and one of the neutrals is coming from an MWBC. In this case, if the neutral were to loosen the MWBC would become a series 240 volt circuit.

I could be wrong though, that explanation was a bit tricky to decipher…

Just noticed Jim Port also mentioned this above.