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| Subject - 2 circuits on 1 CB | |
| rmansfield | I've seen and heard of some people putting 2 wires on the same circuit breaker. Is this permitted? It dosen't sound like a good practice but may come in handy. I only have 5 slots left in my panel and I'm adding 900 SF to the house. Would mini breakers be a better alternative? |
| David Hyatt | If your panel is designed for the thin breakers use them. If you are not overloading panel rating. Double taping is not permitted on most breakers. If you have some circuits that are not heavily loaded you can simply pigtail the wires to the breaker. Putting two wires under the terminal is not complying with the breaker manufactures rating. |
| rmansfield | Thanks for the advice about pigtailing; I didn't think about that. I'll have to map out my electrical system and see which circuits I can do that with. Of course I'll make sure that each wire can handle the full load of the circuit breaker. I'll also have to check the balance of the system so I don't overload 1 leg.quote: |
| wareagle | RM You may install 2 conductors on a breaker if the breaker is rated to accept 2 conductors. Not all are rated. Check and see. |
| John A. Peters | That is called double lugging. It used to be not allowed to pigtail wires inside a panel. Then about 5 years ago they changed the code and redesigned all the panels with larger wire bending space so now it is okay to pigtail wires inside the panel box. It must have been quite a hassle for the manufacturers to make the changeover, but I guess they scheduled things carefully. I know there was a little bit of a shortage there for a while. JP |
| KSsparky | I've never known it to be an NEC violation to splice in a panelboard. There is a reference in the 1984 code at 373.8 about splicing in cabinets and cutout boxes. In 1996 the exception was brought into regular code, still at 373.8. In the 2002 NEC it appears at 312.8. I can't find anything prohibiting splices in panelboards, though. Am I missing something ? |
| John A. Peters | The San Francisco electrical district inspectors (there are 10 or 15 districts) were enforcing the code that way but not anymore since the boxes are now larger, so it's mooot. Up until about ten years ago San Francisco published their own codebook, so maybe it was in there some where. But certainly it was a problem in the FPE boxes which were so small and often became jammed with wires. JP |