I replaced an old fuse box with a new Siemens breaker box with 2 breakers in it. The main wire comes in the top and I connected the hot wire on the left side and the neutral wire on the right and the ground in the neutral bar on the top. Now for the 2 lines that come in, I connected each white wire in the neutral bar and each black in a breaker. Now only the breaker on the left works where the hot wire is connected but the other one does not work. What is wrong?

Don't know that you have 240 Volts.
It sounds like you have neutral where a Hot should be.
The 2 Hot wires feeding Panel Go to Lugs that connect to Buss(Where breakers plug onto.
The Neutral(White) Goes to Lug on Neutral Bar(should be Isolated from the Panel and ground.
Then Ground goes to ground Bar, may need to add 1. It is similar to Neutral Bar. However, It screws directly to metal Panel.

You don't have a hot connected to the one buss. Most boxes are set up for 2 hot wires to use both poles, and need a 4 wire connection to the main, hots to each lug, neutral to neutral bar, and ground to ground. Best thing would be to run a second hot from the other pole. Pig tail the incoming hot and connect it to both busses would also work.

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Originally Posted by lwerling

I replaced an old fuse box with a new Siemens breaker box with 2 breakers in it. The main wire comes in the top and I connected the hot wire on the left side and the neutral wire on the right and the ground in the neutral bar on the top. Now for the 2 lines that come in, I connected each white wire in the neutral bar and each black in a breaker. Now only the breaker on the left works where the hot wire is connected but the other one does not work. What is wrong?

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You said you replaced a fuse box with a new Siemens breaker box. Where is this fuse box in reference to the meter. Example: Is it after the meter, or after a main service rated panel or device?

Need more information.

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Lab said: boxes are set up for 2 hot wires to use both poles, and need a 4 wire connection to the main

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Lost me here?

Pictures... need pictures to stop the guessing.

I believe you have a old 120 volt single hot leg system. If you do you have the one hot side wired incorrectly as a neutral and the neutral and ground also wired incorrectly. Neutral and ground should be landed to the neutral bar if acting as a main and split if this is a sub panel with a insulated neutral bar for the neutral and the ground landed to the panel itself.This can be a dangerous situation. Pictures on this one would be a good educational experience.

TK, Never worked on a 120 only system. If this is 120 volt, Can a Jumper be used across the 2 Hots, provided the feed to this is properly protected?

There were older smaller fuse boxes set up for a 120 volt feed, probably just a one circuit disconnect, more or less.

Yes, a jumper can be installed to feed both hot legs on a 240 volt panel from one hot 120 volt feed.

A bit funky, not something I would do, but there is nothing stopping someone from doing it. I have seen stranger things done.

The one thing comes to mind is if the lugs are rated for only one wire, then a jumper will need to be spliced so no more than one wire is under a lug.

If the feed is only a 20 amp circuit, for example, and the new panel is two 20 amp circuits, the total load of both circuits cannot exceed 20 amps.

So there may not be any advantage to this arrangement.

But without more detail or pictures, we can only speculate.