13
Eaton has two breaker lines:
the residential grade (cheap) one, BR
the industrial grade (good) one, CH.
This is CH. It is an excellent panel. Hold onto it!
BR will be placed more up-front because it's more popular. If you stop there and give up, that's the trouble. Most likely the store also carries CH. Look for it: the narrow package and ...
12
Why 30A service?
Because of provisioning. They are not able to provision 50A service at this time at this location. That is probably due to transformer or pole-line wire capacity in the neighborhood. Giving everyone 50/60A service means they would be oversubscribing their transformers and pole lines. This would necessitate a big capital expense ...
8
I think your idea of a wood panel isn't bad, but I would go the extra mile here:
Buy a nicer board, a couple of basic hinges, and a knob
Paint the mounted opening white and fix your drywall
Cut your board to be large enough to cover the opening and paint it white
Attach the knob and hinges, then mount to the opening on the side closest to the wall
It looks ...
7
Here's what you're supposed to have.
Live to neutral: some value of resistance depending on your load. Don't be surprised if the figure doesn't strictly follow Ohm's Law; many devices have their effective resistance change after they warm up. If there are no loads on the circuit, hot-neutral should be infinity ohms.
Live to ground/earth: this should ...
6
No never; you can never split a cable like that.
What you can do is transition to EMT conduit and individual THHN wires, which will pack nicely in EMT conduit.
I would start by heading to a proper electrical supply house for a cable clamp that is a proper fit for your large cable. You need a proper electrical supply because they have both the depth of ...
5
I'm assuming you made your measurements with nothing connected to the affected outlet. In that case there is a fault somewhere on that circuit and the Live-Neutral reading shows that.
The next step is to remove the outlet itself from the load-end of the circuit and see if anything changes. If so, you should replace the outlet itself.
If not, then the ...
5
You need to talk to your AHJ
(Authority Having Jurisdiction, i.e. The guy who issues the permits).
This is provided for in the Electrical Code by giving AHJs latitude to set grounding standards to suit local conditions. You are like the 10,000th person in their jurisdiction to have that problem. They have compared notes with other AHJs nationally with ...
4
This panel might be OK as a subpanel, but it will be rather limited by breaker compatibility issues...
What you have here is a rather...ancient GE panel; in fact, it is ancient enough that it dates back to before the modern "double stuff" breaker type in the GE Q-line (the THQP). Instead, it calls out the thoroughly obsolete and unobtainable type TR ...
4
That looks like where a main breaker goes, and the stuff in there looks like the damaged guts of a main breaker. I supremely doubt this is for the outside lights.
This an extreme hazard being just like it is. I strongly recommend you get an electrician out to fix it before it burns someone's hand. What's more, it appears that something that is supposed ...
4
Your utility would violating Code up here in the USA
While the US National Electrical Code does not apply to utility wiring or operations for the most part (these fall under the US National Electrical Safety Code, or NESC, instead), the NEC does contain requirements for electrical service sizing, and your utility does not follow them for their split-phase (...
4
Victorian construcion typically puts a cabinet style door behind tub faucets, so they can be easily changed. But then, tub faucets came to exist in the Victorian age.
They would fit a lovely little cabinet door on the vertical, with a latch. The hinge would be on the left, to permit this door to swing open and allow the ceiling hole to be accessed.
...
3
The rule for steel plates is 1/16" (1.6mm)
The general rule in the NEC for steel plates used to protect wiring from damage is that they need to be 1/16" (1.6mm) or thicker. In other words, you need a piece of sheet steel 15 gauge or thicker in order to provide adequate protection to these cables. This rule is set out in NEC 300.4, specifically 300.4(D) in ...
2
Haven't heard back from you, so here goes.
About the panel/breakers
This thing you have is a meter-main with 12 breaker spaces. The main is "backfed" meaning the main breaker is just one of the breakers.
The Challenger breakers are known to be defective. And because of that, many electricians treat Challenger panels as if they're defective. They're ...
2
You need to measure the resistance of the wiring with the breaker disconnected, not just open. You normally use an insulation tester or megger for this. The values should be in the 10's of megaohms at least. If the insulation measures OK, replace the breaker.
1
Can you install 6 AWG Cu wire?
Or 4 AWG Al wire? You bet, that'll be fine. Upgrade away. You are always allowed to oversize wire.
Further, at these large sizes, the new aluminum AA-8000 alloy is perfectly accepted. It's legal all the way down to 15A circuits, but home inspectors will start writing nasty-grams in your buyer's report if they see it ...
1
Being a small home and only seeing 2 circuits (240v baseboard 20 amp heaters) you would be pushing the service, but it might work, you would be removing the double pole 20 in 1-3 and installing the 60 amp or going from 5kw to the new 13kw or April 8 kw higher draw or approx +33 amps while in use compared to the old one. We don’t actually add the breakers to ...
1
By "thick outdoor rated cable", do you mean the rubber insulated cord that is used for TEMPORARY connections and extension cords? Because if so, it is illegal for you to use this cord in any way as a permanent installation connected to your breaker panel, connector or not, conduit or no conduit.
1
New breaker numbers start with CHF...so may not find the CH240 or CH250, but current version is CHF240 and CHF250. Any of these will work.
1
Frame it out and build a small bulkhead then add a access door where it would please you. This way even if someone were to screw into the drywall they would be nowhere near the electrical stuff. You can Frame it out of light gage steel or just stick with 2x4. This way you also avoid the need to repair the ceiling.
1
I don't suppose you want to remove the first layer of 1x2's, fix the ceiling as you would normally to and then add a register (yes, another one) vent to cover up the wall portion?
Just like the one I showed you yesterday...lol:
1
NEC 210.8 covers GFCI , in my 2014 version the replacement of 2 prong receptacles with 3 prong when GFCI protected was in 406.4.d
But not the same in 2017 , I will update this when I find it for the 17 code.
I looked at 406.4.d and did not see it in 17 code
250.130.c “non grounding receptacle replacement” information note states see.406.4.d ,,, oops I ...
1
Originally I was wondering if the Mains 225A max. from the label inside the panel box was the rating of the bus bar. Since it seems there are/can be addition labels on the panel interior itself (the black plastic holding the breakers and bus bars), I wasn't sure if I'd have to pull the meter and main breaker to confirm.
Researching Schneider's website, I ...
1
Subpanel 1 is old fuses. Small, but nothing inherently wrong with it (at least not without more details/examination).
Subpanel 2 is Square D - Good stuff.
Main panel is a Federal Pacific Stab-Lok firestarter
I am not a professional electrician (barely an amateur) but I have seen enough here on DIY and on other sites to know that is a BIG problem. See, for ...
1
You're going to have to start by mapping your house. It helps to have a whole bunch of night lights, or any kind of lights, or loads of some sort that light up clearly when the power is on. One for each receptacle in the house.
I'm fond of making up names for them. So for instance the Square D breaker box, I might call those Quill, Rocket, Gamora, ...
1
The floating neutral is good news, but you don't need a ground rod for this
The fact that your generator has a floating neutral is actually quite fortunate for you, as breaker-interlock-based transfer setups are largely incompatible with generators that have bonded neutrals (the more common case). However, since you're plugging your generator into your ...
1
Because your panel is a GE Qline
The original breakers was their 1" wide 2-pole breaker. The type straddles two spaces, leaving 1/2" above and below.
You took it to the store, I am guessing a big box, and looked for breakers like that. They didn't have GE 1" 2-poles. But you or they mistook it for a duplex.
GE does not make duplex breakers.
But you ...
1
225A just isn't quite enough for everything you want to do here
Normally, I do not advocate for 400A services to single dwelling units; most of the drivers for such are large single loads such as whole-house instantaneous water heaters and oversized backup strip heating, and these tend to be harsh on the power grid. The next smaller service size SCE ...
1
Yes, I'm making a second answer.
Why? Because today I needed to shut off a circuit in an old stab-lok control center. I flipped the breaker and fortunately I checked. It did not actually turn off.
I fiddled a bit, it disconnected, I bumped the wire with my screwdriver, it came back on. I sort of shook the breaker into submission and it finally seemed to ...
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