Thread: Single wired breaker?

Came across a house that had a couple of red flags electrically speaking. For one, the house had a 100 amp subpanel (with several breakers)- including another 100 amp breaker subpanel off the 100 amp. Also, I saw several breakers with only one hot conduit coming out of it and the other neutral was taped off. How does that even work as it seems that the circuit is not complete?

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Assuming it's a 110v breaker, there should be only one wire off it, as most are not designed for two wires. A 220v breaker ( like two tied together) will have two, one off each side.

Hard to tell from your description. Was it as double pole breaker that only had one wire to it? You also said "other neutral". Not sure what you mean there. Was there a white wire that had black tape on it? Was it connected to the other pole of the breaker?

A photo would be a big help here.
JF

It's not right, but they could be sharing a neutral back to the panel, or it could be 240 circuit of some type, and they didn't use 12-3 or 10-3 wire.

Could be thinking the ground is a nuetral.
Black hot
White nuetral
Bare or green Ground
Could be looking at 14 or 12-3 which would usually have a red common for three way switches.
Unless of course it's 220v with a black and red hot, still with a white nuetral and bare or green ground.
Or,could be................................
Need a pic.

Jim, it sounds to me like they are using the 10/2 with ground from the dryer 220 plug and changed it to 110 for a gas dryer using the ground wire for the netural and taped the white off.

Could be Tony, around here I see HVAC guys use #10 or #12 w/g for 220 too.

Once saw a diy'er use 12-2 w/g and connected them with crimp butt connectors. Anything is possoble.

If one of your 100 amp sub panels was under the house near the furnace then it sounds like to me the house at one time had a heat pump but now has a gas furnace that needed a 120 volt circuit. I have seen a couple of heat pump panels that were wired for 240 volt only that have had one of the hot wires removed from the breaker on both ends and made into a neutral. This leaves you with a 100 amp breaker in the outside panel with only one wire on it.

Originally Posted by David Edens

Came across a house that had a couple of red flags electrically speaking. For one, the house had a 100 amp subpanel (with several breakers)- including another 100 amp breaker subpanel off the 100 amp.

David, not sure from the description, but it doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with this part of the installation.