SquareD Homeline breaker question

I ran into a little dissagreament with my friend yesterday regarding how many conductors you can connect to a breaker. I said that since the Homeline breaker has 2 "notches", you can connect 2 conductors, in essense using the breaker as a "junction box". He said that you can only connect one conductor to a breaker, and the purpose of the notches is if you have to connect a large gauge wire the breaker (you have to split the strands according to him). I didn't want to argue with him on the need to connect a 4 or 6 gauge wire to a 20A breaker, nor the fact that the larger breakers have a correspondingly larger wire opening.

I'm wondering who's right....

 

Look at the literature with the breaker. It will indicate what it is UL listed for. Most are one conductor, some are two.

 

You are right. Your friend is wrong.

Note that most home inspectors will cite two wires to a breaker as a "defect", even though it not always is.

Note also that there is little reason to every want to attach two wires to a breaker. It serves very little purpose.

 

Thanks for confirming it. I know most breakers I use have provision for only 1 conductor, but Homeline breakers are the exception I guess.

In this case it makes more sense to connect 2 conductors to the same breaker. This is a 20A circuit that will feed 10 basement outlets (finished basement, the high number of outlets is there for convinience only). The panel happens to be in the middle of the circuit, with 6 outlets going on one side and 4 on the other. The panel also happens to be in this closet , with the closest outlet being 15' away. I would have to run an additional 15' of EMT or use a junction box otherwise.

 

I still would not make two connections to the breaker. It's confusing enough in the panel without bringing more cables than necessary into it. I'd bring the cable out of the panel to the first receptacle (even if I had to put an extra one under the panel) and "T" off in two directions from there (or simply continue around the far side of the room).

Ah, the pain of doing electrical work in Chicago.

Besides, you'll have to deal with that "defect" when you sell your house.

 

I will put a juction box a couple of ft away from the panel, I have to use a coupling at that point anyway (EMT not long enough ).

This house is a brand new construction, I'm just doing the electrical for the basement (the owner wants to make an entertainment room in there). The vast majority of the circuits are 15A, and also shared neutral. 2 of the breakers have 2 conductors on them. One feeds the SD and the basement lights (15A), the other I'm not sure yet. Looks like it's feeding 2 of the upstairs bedrooms at first glance. This is not in Chicago, but a suburb.

The funny thing is that I've never really had any problems with Chicago inspectors. It's the ones in the suburb that always pick on the smallest possible things.