Three Wire Circuits


  #1  
Old 12-27-03, 05:47 PM
ERIKGENE's Avatar
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Three Wire Circuits

I had time on my hands today so I mapped out all the circuits on my panel (took the cover off). Found a few mistakes vs what the previous owners labels said. Also found that one 15amp leg of a 3 wire circuit appears to go nowhere. Tommorrow I'll start pulling outlets looking for the incoming 3 wire as I know where the other 15 amp circuit goes. I hope to find a "capped" hot.

It appears that I have 4, 15 amp 3 wire circuits. Adjacent breakers fed by 14/3 wire. None of the breakers are tied, and checking all recepticales none are multi-wired. It appears for space at the panel and easy of running wire, the electrician ran 3 wire and then split it into 2, 2 wire circuits at the first outlet / light

Is there anything that should be corrected here, I read in a few posts that even if there are no multwired recepticales, the breakers still should be tied. Is that correct ?
 
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Old 12-27-03, 07:46 PM
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This is a perfectly normal and acceptad installation. I doubt there are any of the multi wire circuits terminating on a single device yoke so no handle ties are necessary.
 
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Old 12-27-03, 08:05 PM
hotarc
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On thing you will want to make sure of is that the white wires are pigtailed (wire-nutted together) rather than spliced thru the receptacle at the first box where the 3-wire cable is split into two separate circuits. Actually, it is a good idea, multi-wire or not, for all connections to be pigtailed rather than spliced thru the receptacles.
 
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Old 12-28-03, 05:12 PM
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Although it does not sound like breakers with tied handles are necessary, thay are not against code either.

Personally I like them, so that there is no way that power can inadvertently be left on and somehow get to an outlet or switch I am working on.
 
 

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