Breaker Box - Question

[LBrown59]

Breaker Box - Question
I have a circuit breaker box with spaces for 6 circuit breakers.
I only had one breaker in it.
I went to add 2 more breakers to it and one of the breaker I installed would not work.
I was about to declare that one of the 2 new 20A breakers was defective when I discovered that 3 of the spaces require the black wire be connected to the breaker and the other 3 spaces require the white wire connected to these breakers.
It's my understanding that proper electoral wiring demands that you never break the white wire and all switches breakers etc are to be on the black wire only according to code.
Since this breaker box requires the white wire must be broken on three of the breakers does that mean the panel does not comply to code?

 

[Shimon]

Hmmm. That's an interesting one. Never heard of putting a breaker on the neutral.

Most breaker boxes will have a separate neutral bus bar and a separate ground bus bar and then each breaker controls the hot to its circuit. The only time the neutral and ground bars are connected are at the main panel (not in sub-panels).

What type of breaker box/breakers is this? What brand? Do you have a photo?


Are you sure that you aren't confusing 240v with 120v? Most breaker boxes are set up for 240v so you have two hot wires coming in and every other breaker goes to one hot and the other breakers go to the other hot. If your panel is not wired properly then you may only have 120v coming into it so only half of the breaker slots would work. Does that make sense?

 

[LarryD]

Did someone run 120v (2 wire w/ ground) to the panel and land the nuetral on one of the the main buses?

Take a meter and see what you get between the two "hots". Should be 220. Or you could just look at the feed and see how many wires are there. Standard for a sub-panel should be two hots (any color but white and green/bare copper) and a nuetral. There may or may not be a ground depending on code at the time of install. Should be a ground to a rod if it's not present with the feeder.

 

[MossRoad]

Hire an electrician.

 

[RonMar]

Like Larry said, Sounds like someone miswired 120 into a 240 loadcenter. there are 4 buses in a modern residential panel. Ground(green wire), Neutral(white wire) and two Hot busses(usually black and red wires). An old panel might not have a dedicated neutral buss. The hot busses usually run down the middle with tabs that alternate for the circuit breakers to attach to. The first breaker attaches to black, second to red, third to black and so on down the line till all the breaker slots are full. This helps balance the load on the incomming hot legs. Each hot leg is 120VAC when measured to neutral and you get 240VAC when measured from hot to hot. This staggered arrangment also allows for a 240 breaker, which is wider, to connect to two tabs(both hot busses) at once for 240VAC.

And like Mossroad suggested, If you are not familliar with how this should be set up, it is a good way to get dead or burn down your home!

Good Luck

 

[midlf]

One I saw had a 2 Conductor cable with a ground run to the box. black was hot (naturally), but the white was also hot. Black to white voltage was 240. They used the ground wire as the neutral.