Inspection yesterday, home built in 1984, GE panel, noticed a white wire on a 30-amp breaker. I happened to trace it back, and found that the paired black wire ALSO goes to a 30-amp breaker, 2 down from the other.
Looks like a 2 pole, 30 amp, 240 volt circuit. It should be on a 2 pole circuit breaker what was it feeding?
That’s just it-most circuits aren’t labeled and I wasn’t going to start flipping breakers to find out… Shouldn’t they be tied together?
The GE tandem breakers seem to prone to these things. It looks like the there are two 30 amp 240 circuits there, one with the white and black wires you identified and another with the adjacent red and black wires. It looks like there should be a pair of handle ties like these, and the wires on one of those breakers will need to be flipped.
There is another 240 or multi wire branch circuit in the bottom of your photos. Was it tied?
That’s what I was thinking, and looked for. The panel looks to be original-age, but the drywall is cut out around it, like the panel was replaced. Also, the front cover doesn’t go with the panel as the cover has 4 holes, but the panel has 6 screw holes… it’s in the garage, which has been “renovated”…
Are the two wires on the same or the opposite leg or phase? 110 or 220 volt? If 220 volt, obviously needs a handle tie. If two separate 110 volt circuits, how is the common handled?
I would call it out as what appears to be a 240 volt circuit, has no tie handles at the breaker.
Let the Electrician evaluate it and decide if it’s right or wrong.
According to his tracing of the conductors the black and white originate from the same cable and teminate on two twin breakers two slots apart. Two slots apart are on different legs therefore the circuit voltage is 240 volts. Black and white from the same cable one the same leg would be 0 volts.
Two 30 amp breakers with one breaker between them. I’m thinking this was installed incorrectly - not sure how they would be tied together. Regardless, I’m recommending it be checked by a LICENSED electrician.
Yes it’s incorrect and needs to be fixed. So is the missing connector on the yellow NM cable.
Panel grommet?
Grommet isn’t really the correct term. The actual fitting is called a connector, in this case a NM cable connector.
You know…when it’s just a plastic or rubber one, we always just called it a grommit. When it’s was metal one that clamped, we called it clamp connector. I guess it never occurred to me that the plastic ones were also called connectors, but it makes sense. Thanks.
The cable needs to be secured to the panel, not just run through a bushing or grommet.
Yes a grommet is something that just protects the sharp edges of the metal hole but does not fasten the cable to the enclosure which is required as Jim mentioned.
In my mind, a grommet is meant to be threaded and pulled, like with shoelaces or a tarp. If the intended purpose is to simply protect an opening or the component being threaded from the opening, I’d call it a bushing.
But yea, many components that may appear to be bushings are actually connectors because they have “teeth” that grab onto the wires and prevent it from being pulled back out, thus connecting it to the panel.
A mechanical connection of the cable to the enclosure is a code requirement.
Right, I was referring to something like this that you posted the other day. This is considered mechanical connection, correct?
Yes that is correct. There are a few instances when the mechanical connection is not required to the enclosure but that would be an exception to the general rule that a mechanical connection is always required.
