In today’s inspection I came across this: a single 15A circuit wired from one terminal of a dual 15A appliance type circuit breaker. See top right of pic.
This seems like it will work OK, but I just want to make sure.
It will work and trip accordingly. Just someone lazy was working in the panel that didn’t bother replacing the 2-pole with two singles or (even easier) pulling off the handle-tie. It’s also probable that if it’s a newer install, they thought there was going to be a multi-wire branch circuit and they were hooking it up to the 2-pole breaker.
Jeff
The two pole CB is fine as Jeff stated. Pulling off the handle tie wouldn’t help since 2 pole CB’s are constructed with an internal trip mechanism.
Thanks, Jeff and Robert. They were probably planning on having another circuit sharing the neutral, as I did notice lots of 3-conductor wires with the red wires unconnected. The house was pretty well tricked out with a lot of complicated features … took longer to inspect per square foot than any house I’ve ever done that was so well maintained,
Frank,
Instead of terminology like this “appliance type circuit breaker.” the correct term would be a double or two pole breaker.
An appliance can be supplied from either a single or double pole breaker. It would depend on the voltage as to whether the single or double pole were used.
Yeah, I’m more careful with the wording in my reports, and do my best to keep terminology simple so lay people can most easily understand what I’m saying. I didn’t even make a mention of this one in my report, not being a functional issue.