10 Common Mistakes DIYers Make In Circuit Breaker Boxes
Summary
TLDRThis video script discusses 10 common electrical mistakes DIY enthusiasts make with circuit breakers and panels. It provides solutions for each, emphasizing safety and proper practices like legible labeling, avoiding overloading, protecting wire sheathing, balancing breaker amperage with wire gauge, proper grounding, avoiding wire doubling, using correct wire colors, double-tapped breakers, filler plates, and correct screw torquing. Bonus advice includes maintaining organized wiring to prevent future issues.
Takeaways
- đ Always label your electrical panel clearly and legibly to avoid confusion and ensure safety.
- âĄïž Test your receptacles and switches to ensure no current is running through them before working on the electrical panel.
- đ Avoid overloading your circuit breaker panel by not exceeding 80% of its total amperage capacity.
- đ Protect the sheathing of wires inside the panel to prevent shorts or faults caused by rubbing against the knockouts.
- âïž Ensure a proper balance between circuit breaker amperage and wire gauge to prevent overheating and potential fires.
- âĄïž Proper grounding is crucial; never cut the main ground wire and avoid improper connections that could lead to electrical issues.
- đ© Avoid doubling up on wiring within the same hole on the bus bar to prevent poor connections and potential arcing.
- đïž Use the correct sheathing color for wires as per the National Electric Code: white or gray for neutrals, green or bare for grounds, and typically black or red for hot wires.
- đ« Do not double tap circuit breakers unless the manufacturer's specifications explicitly allow for it, as it can lead to troubleshooting difficulties.
- 𧩠Fill all unused knockouts in your circuit breaker panel with filler plates to prevent accidental contact with live parts.
- đ© Torque all screws and lugs to the correct tension as specified by the manufacturer to ensure secure and safe connections.
Q & A
What is the first mistake DIY-ers often make with their electrical panels?
-The first mistake is having illegible labels or descriptions in the electrical panel, which can lead to confusion and safety issues.
How can one identify which circuit breaker controls a specific outlet or switch?
-One can use a circuit breaker finder tool, which is plugged into an outlet and then used to identify the correct breaker by running it over each one.
What is the recommended maximum percentage of amperage usage for a circuit breaker panel?
-It is recommended to use no more than 80% of the panel's total amperage capacity to avoid overloading.
Why is it important to protect the sheathing of the wires inside the electrical panel?
-Protecting the sheathing prevents the wires from rubbing against the knockouts inside the panel, which could cause the sheathing to wear down and lead to shorts or faults.
What should one do if they are unsure about working on their electrical panel?
-If there is any uncertainty or lack of confidence in handling electrical panel work, it is advisable to call a professional electrician.
Why is it crucial to match the wire gauge with the amperage of the circuit breaker?
-Matching the wire gauge with the circuit breaker amperage ensures that the wire can safely handle the amount of electricity flowing through it, preventing overheating and potential fires.
What are the common mistakes made regarding grounding in electrical panels?
-Common mistakes include cutting the main ground wire, twisting multiple ground wires together without proper connection to the bus bar, and not ensuring all components are properly grounded.
Why should one avoid doubling up on wiring within the same hole on the bus bar?
-Doubling up increases the risk of a poor connection, which could lead to arcing, sparking, or other electrical issues.
What is the significance of using the correct sheathing color for wires in electrical panels?
-Using the correct sheathing color (white or gray for neutrals, green or bare for grounds, and typically black or red for hot wires) helps in easily identifying the function of each wire and adhering to the National Electric Code.
What is 'double tapping' in the context of circuit breakers and why is it sometimes a problem?
-Double tapping refers to connecting two different wires to the same circuit breaker, which can be against code and may complicate troubleshooting due to the shared nature of the circuit.
Why are filler plates important in a circuit breaker panel?
-Filler plates are important to cover any unused knockouts in the panel to prevent accidental contact with live parts and to maintain safety standards.
How does one ensure that the screws and lugs in an electrical panel are tightened to the correct tension?
-One should use a torque screwdriver to apply the correct amount of pressure as specified by the manufacturer, which is typically indicated on the inside of the panel or the circuit breaker itself.
What is the bonus tip provided at the end of the script regarding electrical panel wiring?
-The bonus tip is to avoid creating a tangled 'rat's nest' of wires in the panel, as this can make it difficult to identify and work with individual wires, potentially leading to accidents or mistakes.
Outlines
đ Common DIY Mistakes in Electrical Panels
The paragraph discusses 10 common mistakes made by DIY enthusiasts when working with electrical panels or circuit breaker boxes. It emphasizes the importance of legible labeling for safety and clarity, avoiding overloading circuit breakers, and ensuring that the amperage of the panel is not exceeded. The speaker also advises on the correct way to label and identify circuits using a circuit breaker finder or other methods, such as using a radio or cell phone to test for current. The paragraph serves as an introduction to a series of tips on how to safely and effectively work on electrical systems at home.
â ïž Safety Precautions and Wiring Mistakes
This section of the script covers the importance of protecting wire sheathing from damage within the panel, the correct balance between circuit breaker amperage and wire gauge, and the necessity of proper grounding. It warns against overloading circuits and the potential hazards of using the wrong wire gauge for a given amperage, which can lead to overheating and faults. The paragraph also addresses the dangers of improper grounding, such as cutting the main ground wire or incorrectly bundling ground wires, and stresses the need for a neat and organized wiring pattern to ensure safety and ease of maintenance.
đ Best Practices for Electrical Panel Installation
The final paragraph focuses on the correct installation practices for electrical panels, including avoiding double-tapping circuit breakers unless specified by the manufacturer, using the proper sheathing color for wires as per the National Electric Code, and the importance of using filler plates to cover unused knockouts in the panel. It also touches on the necessity of torquing screws and lugs to the correct tension to ensure safety and proper connection. The speaker provides a bonus tip on the value of a well-organized and patterned panel layout for future ease of use and maintenance, contrasting it with a 'rat's nest' of tangled wires that can pose significant risks and challenges.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄCircuit Breaker
đĄWire Sheathing
đĄImbalance
đĄGrounding
đĄWire Colors
đĄDouble Tapping
đĄFiller Plates
đĄTorque
đĄLabeling
đĄSub Panel
đĄTandems
Highlights
Illegible handwriting in electrical panels can cause confusion and safety issues.
Always test your receptacles or switches to ensure no current is running to them before working on them.
Use labels to identify circuit breakers for easy troubleshooting.
Circuit breaker finders can help identify which breaker is assigned to a particular outlet or switch.
Avoid overloading your circuit breaker panel to prevent potential electrical issues.
Know the amperage capacity of your panel and avoid using more than 80% of it.
Protect the sheathing of wires inside the panel to prevent short circuits.
Ensure wires are supported or protected by bushings or connectors to avoid damage.
If unsure about electrical work, it's best to call a professional electrician.
Match the wire gauge with the amperage of each circuit to prevent overheating and potential faults.
Proper grounding is crucial for electrical safety; avoid common mistakes like cutting the main ground.
Avoid doubling up on wiring within the same hole on the bus bar to prevent poor connections.
Use the correct sheathing coloring for wires as per the National Electric Code.
Double-tapping circuit breakers can be illegal or against code, depending on the breaker design.
Missing filler plates in your circuit breaker panel can be dangerous and is against code.
Tighten screws and lugs to the correct tension to ensure safety and proper function.
A well-organized electrical panel is easier to maintain and troubleshoot.
Transcripts
here are 10 common mistakes diy-ers make
in their electrical panels or circuit
breaker boxes now we will be covering a
fix for each of these that I can walk
you through and keep in mind these are a
no particular order so let's kick it off
with our first one and that is the
frustrating experience of opening up
your panel only to find this there's
nothing here sometimes there's no
description at all other times it's an
outdated description and other times
you're just wondering how the heck am I
supposed to read that this is gibberish
that doesn't make any sense illegible
handwriting is kind of a a bad thing
when it comes to electricity so this can
be a real problem now this is a good
time to remind you that you should
always test your receptacles or your
switches or whatever it is you're
working on to make sure that there is no
current running to them even if you
think you've got it turned off here in
the electrical panel fortunately this is
an easy one to fix make sure to take the
time to write these in legibly if you
need to you can buy some labels and I'll
put some links in the description below
now I have a circuit breaker Finder
right here that works really well this
is the kind of thing where you basically
you plug this end in to an outlet for
example and then it even comes with an
adapter for working with light bulbs and
then you can use this end to run over
each of the circuit breakers and it'll
tell you which one is assigned to that
particular Outlet or receptacle or light
switch it's really handy but there's a
hundred easier ways to do it as well you
can just turn on a loud radio that's
plugged in you can have someone yell you
can do the cell phone walkie-talkie
thing whatever you need to do but make
sure you get these labeled appropriately
mistake number two is overloading your
circuit breaker panel now you can see on
this particular panel this thing is
pretty chock full we have our entire
house running on this including the
basement which was unfinished when we
moved in so this really can't handle any
more than it's got right here the more
important thing is that you know how
many amps you can handle in this panel
and that you are only using up to about
80 percent of that amperage so for
example this is a 150 amp panel so I
want to make sure that I'm not using
more than 120 amps of the juice that
this can provide at any given time it
doesn't mean that I have to keep this to
120 or even 150 amps worth of circuit
breakers when I add all these up it's
going to be more than that and that's
okay it's more about the usage within
your home now the more you stack in here
especially if you're using tandems like
this where I'm getting 30 plus 30 you
know that kind of thing can add up
pretty quickly and the more of those you
have the more likely it is that you'll
be able to use those and overload your
panel so you want to be careful to make
sure that you're not putting too much in
there and if you need to create a
separate sub panel I'll have a whole
video coming out about that next week
mistake number three on our list is not
protecting the sheathing of the wires on
the inside and letting them rub up
against The Knockouts inside the panel
now I'm going to take this cover off
I've got all the screws but one off I'm
going to support the panel with one hand
while I remove this last screw to make
sure it doesn't slip or fall into the
panel itself so with that being
supported I can now pull that out and
put it aside
you can see up here we've got a pretty
good job up here we've got our push and
plastic connectors or bushings here
we've got everything here coming in as
it should there are no wires going
directly into the actual panel Knockouts
without being supported or protected by
a bushing or a connector here and that's
exactly what we want when you don't have
that that could start to serrate the
edges of these and cause a short or a
fault now this is a great time as we
remove the panel cover here for you to
pause for a second and think am I ready
to do this is this something that I'm
qualified and trained to do do I have
confidence in what I'm doing or is this
a little bit of guesswork if there's
guesswork if you're unsure if you don't
have that confidence that you know
you're doing it right and you've done
your research then maybe call an
electrician and get them to help you
there is some serious voltage and
amperage running through here that you
want to treat with respect mistake
number four is having an imbalance
between your circuit breaker amperage
and your wire gauge if you look up to
top here we'll see that we've got
multiple colors of wires coming in we've
got these white sheathed Romex here and
then we've also got some yellows as well
now the white typically indicates a 14
gauge wire remember with gauges the
higher the number the thinner the wire
is and over here these yellows represent
a 12 gauge wire so it's a little bit
thicker now that makes a big difference
on what they're connected to what we
don't want to do is allow a thinner
gauge wire to have an amperage of
circuit breaker that exceeds its
capacity generally speaking 15 amp
circuits should use at least a 14 gauge
wire and it could be thicker that's okay
we don't want it to be thinner and then
these 20 amps will use a 12 gauge wire
now the issue you might run into is
let's say you have a 20 or a 30 amp
circuit breaker in here and you've got
14 gauge wire that's actually capable of
producing a lot more electricity pushing
A Lot More Voltage essentially or
amperage really Through the Wire than a
14 gauge wire is designed to handle and
what could happen is that heats up and
that creates again a potential for fault
or issues fire different things like
that so we don't want that overheating
to occur so we want to make sure that
you match up the gauge of wire with the
amperage of each circuit number five on
our list is improper grounding and
there's several ways that I've seen this
happen I just saw a box the other day
actually where someone actually snipped
the main ground coming in from the
source and they just cut it right here
nothing in the whole panel was grounded
at all have no idea honestly why they
would do that or what they thought they
were trying to accomplish here but that
is a huge mistake another one that I've
seen before is when they take a bunch of
these different ground wires here and
then they twist them all together and
then they run one pigtail down into the
ground bus bar that's also not okay it
can be okay depending on the area for
you to use a wire nut there and you can
match a bunch of them up there put a
wire nut with a pigtail going off that's
actually all right in most areas but
again check with your local code on that
what's not not okay is just to Twist
them together assume they're going to
have good enough contact and then run a
pigtail off of that so make sure that
everything is properly grounded and you
can easily tell for example in mine if I
move these wires out of the way over
here you can see that the main ground
comes in right here and then it's
attached to the bus bar and then this
bus bar is attached to the other ground
bus bar by the panel itself you don't
need to have a wire running from here
over to here for grounding or making
that connection with the ground it's
actually the metal panel that's making
that connection there and that's
perfectly okay number six on our list is
doubling up on your wiring within the
same hole on the bus bar I found an
example of that here on this neutral
right down here at the end I've got two
neutrals going into the exact same hole
which is kind of silly because there are
plenty of available neutral holes on
this bus bar there's no good reason to
do that other than maybe a bit of
laziness or a misunderstanding there
when you have two you're increasing the
likelihood of a poor connection and that
some something that again could shake
loose over time or just not have a tight
connection and that could cause arcing
sparking other issues like that I've got
an issue with it right there and then on
my ground bar it's all over the place
there's Bunches of them and those are
pretty easy fixes especially if you have
a lot of open holes in your bus bar for
neutrals or for grounds number seven on
our list is using the improper sheathing
coloring for your wires now there's
pretty simple National Electric Code
about this here in the United States and
it basically says that your neutrals
have to be white or gray and that your
ground has to be green or bare wire and
so it doesn't really specify much about
the black for example for your hot or
the red for your secondary hot but that
is that well understood color set for
anything electrical in these panels so
what I noticed in my panel right here
the electrician who wired this house up
before we bought this wired up a neutral
as a secondary hot or what appears to be
a neutral now that would be okay if we
made one little will change to this so
what we need to do is just take some
electrical tape that's red and use that
to wrap around and indicate that that is
not in fact neutral but is a secondary
hot and there we go now that lets
anybody who's working on this in the
future know that this is a secondary hot
not a neutral line you can kind of
figure that out if you're looking at it
but let's not make it any more difficult
than it needs to be number eight on our
list is what are called double tapped
circuit breakers now this is illegal or
against code at least in some areas and
then in other circumstances and
situations it's actually totally okay to
do so you have to know when you can use
this and when you cannot now you can see
for example if I were to feed two
different Hots or two different lines
into this one circuit breaker that may
or may not be against code it depends on
how this one was designed you can see on
this Eaton circuit breaker for example
this 20 amp really is designed just for
one wire to be fed in if you look at the
specs on the side it shows a 14 to 10
gauge an eight gauge or even a six to
four gauge and it has all the specs for
that that's okay but it doesn't say
anything about applying two different
wires to the same circuit breaker that's
because it's not up to manufacturer's
specs to land two different wires into
this thing however if you look at the
Square D home line series for example
these typically tend to allow for that
if we take a look on the side here you
can see there's a very clear
illustration of mounting one wire in or
two wires so we can follow those
guidelines and again if you flip over to
the side and see the lug here it's got
two plates where you can clearly receive
two different wires based on the
curvature of those plates now double
tapping is kind of a frown upon practice
mostly because it means you've got two
home runs or two lines running off the
same circuit breaker it makes it a
little bit trickier sometimes to
troubleshoot especially if those two
areas of the home or the business are
not right next to each other that can be
problematic to troubleshoot as well
number nine on our list is missing
filler plates you're your circuit
breaker panel cover has these different
Knockouts for different circuit breakers
you want to make sure to only knock out
those that are filled with a circuit
breaker what can happen is sometimes
some changes are made in the home maybe
some circuits are rewired to a sub panel
and then you have these open slots here
or perhaps you got a little aggressive
and you knocked out too many of those
Knockouts and you have more open holes
than you have circuit breakers to fill
in that case that's actually totally
against code again because someone could
just reach their fingers in there and
put their fingers where they're not
supposed to it can be dangerous and it's
an easy fix you can buy filler blanks
right from the store you sell these at
Home Depot and Lowe's you can buy them
on Amazon these are pretty easy so get
these filler plates put one of those in
there make sure you don't have any open
holes in your circuit breaker panel now
we're almost on our last one but I do
want to remind you that I will have a
video coming out about how to install a
new sub panel I'm putting one in my
garage for example and I'll walk you
through step by step all of that you can
check that out using the link at the end
of the video or in the description below
and as always every product that I show
in this video you can check out that
little shopping bag in the lower left
corner to see those from Home Depot or
Lowe's or other stores like that or you
can check out the links in the
description below now on to number 10
which is not torquing your screws down
to the right tension all of the lugs or
screws inside this panel have a specific
tension that they need to be torqued
down to and if you look for example on
our different circuit breakers just like
we saw earlier it shows how much
pressure these need to have in fact
we've got a breakdown right here for
example that this says 36 inch pounds or
4 newton meters so that same thing
applies to the lugs on here but then
there are different measurements or
ratings for our bigger lugs over here
and those are typically located on the
inside of the panel so you want to make
sure to do that up to code and make sure
you're following those specifications
most people don't have something like
this this is a tour Fork screwdriver and
it allows you there's different ways to
adjust these banks on the brand and then
when it maxes out it's no longer going
to apply that tension so I keep turning
into turning and then it'll get to that
in this case it's set to 50 inch pounds
of torque and then when it's done it's
not going to turn anymore so I know I've
got it just at the right spot and in a
lot of companies nowadays they're
actually going around and they're
actually once a year just testing all of
the screws and lugs to make sure that
they're tightened the appropriate amount
and this is a smart thing to do in your
house as well now I will say I think
most of the time diy-ers especially like
myself we're not necessarily going
around and saying okay I've got to get
it right to 36 inch pounds but believe
it or not these only cost about 40 bucks
I know it's not super cheap but to make
sure that you're getting it just right I
think it's a good little investment and
again I'll put links to that in the
description below so that you can make
sure that you're getting all of these
set to just the right torque now just
one last little bonus issue that I want
to throw out there here's an example of
a beautifully wired and and beautifully
patterned panel I love looking at
something like this to me it's a form of
art it's done well it's easy to
recognize it's easy to trace the lines
and it's easy to add on more here's an
example of what we want to avoid a
tangled Rat's Nest like this can be
really difficult to find out what's what
and it makes it easy to accidentally
touch wires when you don't mean to or to
remove the wrong one because it's hard
to trace so the more organization you
have the more of a pattern that you
apply to your layout inside your panel
the better off you'll be in the future
as well as anyone working after you
while we're on the topic of wiring you
might enjoy this video right here it
shows six mistakes diy-ers make when
wiring outlets and some of these are
pretty surprising I was going to say
shocking I restrain myself yeah I can do
that I'm Nils with learn to DIY thanks
for watching
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