Hi Folks

I have a situation where I would like to run the kitchen plugs in my basement reno summer kitchen. Our Canadian code book here for Ontario (Ontario Electrical Code Safety Code) changes like the seasons. Now we can wire the outlets three different ways. These are as follows

15 amp split receptacles with no two outlets side by side. Using 15 amp wire (14/3)
And 2-pole breaker with tiebar

20 amp non split receptacles with max two outlets not side by side on same circuit. Using 20 amp wire (12/2) and 20 amp receptacles.

20 amp non split receptacles with one outlet per circuit. Using 20 amp wire (12/2) and 20 amp receptacles.

Outlets beside the kitchen sink must be GFCI now as well.

The code book states for the third option you can run a 12/3 wire to the first receptacle and then branch a 12/2 wire to the second receptacle for two 20 amp circuits using 2-20 amp breakers.

My first question using the 12/3 wire should or can you use a 20 amp 2-pole breaker with the tiebar (normally used for 240v load) to run the 12/3 dual circuit or should you use 2 separate 20 amp single pole breakers. I understand if you used the 20 amp double pole with the tiebar then both circuits would pop off at the same time but would that be safer than having someone doing electrical work on the outlet box with the 12/3 to 12/2 branch pass through to make sure power is shut off in the complete outlet not just on one wire of the 12/3 branch.

The second question is I am running out of space quickly on the new 100 amp sub panel with 32 circuits (scary) due too a lot of the breakers taking up two spaces (surge protector breaker, 240 breakers and all those little things that seem to take up breaker space) I had this setup shown on an earlier post regarding sub panels. I do have space in the distribution box to tap in more 60 or 100 amp wires but I was trying to avoid any additional panels other than the possibility of running a 6/3 welder wire to a 50 amp breaker in a small sub panel.

So my thinking is I would like to use a few Siemens Quad breakers to save room in the new 100 amp 32 circuit panel. The possible combinations vary but as an example 15/15-15/15 , 15/20-20/15, 15/30-30/15, 15/15/15/15 . The first three have the middle 2-poles ties for 240v circuits such as heaters, air conditioner etc.

Are these breakers safe as I understand the middle two poles share the panel connection to the bus with the outer breakers. Can they be safely used for baseboard heater,water heater,stove loads without overheating the breaker?

Also the code book doesn't specify whether to use 2 separate single pole breakers for the 12/3 wire for the kitchen receptacle dual circuit discussed above. I have a 15/20-20/15 quad (Siemens Q21520CTNC) with the middle two breakers being 2 pole common trip as they have the tie bar. Can I use the middle 2-pole to connect the 12/3 wire for the two 20 amp 120v kitchen plug non split receptacle circuits? Red wire to one pole and black to the other pole and white to common. I think that still balances the load on the common. It would be similar to connecting a 15 amp split receptacle circuit breaker. The code book states that the 3-wire circuit in this situation does not need to be two pole but the breakers need to be adjacent. It does not state that you can't use a 2-pole breaker with the tiebar. Or do you feel the electrical inspector may have an issue here?

Home Depot description of quad breaker,

If you're doing a renovation and find that your breaker box is running out of room, use this space-saver to double your circuits. Simply replace a single pole 15 Amp breaker and a two pole 20 Amp breaker with this one to expand it into two 15 Amp single pole circuits and a two pole 20 Amp circuit. Each 15 Amp circuit could be used for general 110V applications such as lighting and receptacles and the 20Amp could be used for an air conditioner or a heater.

Wow next house I may go with a 400 amp service instead of the 200 amp service. It is scary how fast you can fill a new sub panel up. The breaker spaces in the upstairs FPE Stab lock panel are full now with the new addition wired in. The new Siemens panel sure looked good before I started filling it. The new panel is taking a few new circuits from upstairs as well (easy to wire under the floor than in the attic) Maybe I should run a 100 amp sub from tap box to the basement garage to free up some circuits? I haven't completed the wiring to the new panel yet and the garage circuits still have to be run. I assume that because the garage is in the same building as the main power that I can use the main ground connection in the tap box. The 200 amp main disconnect switch is below the tap box. Most of the basement will just be used part time.

Thanks very much for any input.

Man, that's a lot to chew on. I generally don't like quad or twin breakers for heavy loads. Perhaps take some circuits feeding recepts in the hall, or outside, things used rarely or intermittently. Combine some of them on twins to create the space and use the full size 2 pole for the appliance.

Hi LanserElectric

Thanks for your input. I was thinking the same thing myself. Certainly the crawlspace lights can go one side of a twin as they will just have low wattage energy bulbs. Maybe the hall and kitchen lights can go on the other side of the twin. The problem is there isn't too many 15 amp circuits. The majority of the circuits are 20amp 1- pole (120v) and 20amp and up 2-pole (240v) so I thought I could gain space faster with the quads as they take up 2 regular spaces. When you look at the Siemens quad breaker each section is as wide as a single pole FPE (Stab Lok) normal breaker. I guess the concern on the quad is that the two middle poles share a connection to the bus with the two outer poles. You would think they would test these thoroughly before putting on the market? I wonder if there is anybody out there that has had experience with them overheating or malfunctioning on the job?

Thanks

They do test them, for a certain use. There are enough technical disclaimers in the box they aren't sweating it, good lawyers. The twins come in 20A. You will probably find a third or more of your 20A breakers are loaded under 4 amps. Spare bedrooms, garages if you aren't a hobbyist, a recept by your AC, there's all kinds of loads most often 20A single pole that may have little or no load. Put them on the twins. I generally do not like loading a twin beyond 60% of its rated value, this is based on my experience and no scientific or code reason beyond my personal experience. 80% is the rule for a continuous load, but those things just cannot dissapate heat as well. I have seen breaker fingers blue from the heat of those, but also regular ones to be fair. I kind of have a problem with that ad, the heater or AC would be an especially heavy load and I would definitely want that on a full size 2 pole. When I build out a panel I alternate the 2 pole breakers and put 2 single poles so they are never opposite each other. I try and not put any heavy single pole loads right next to each other either. Then use a clamp-on ammeter and read each leg at different times during the day. You can get a picture of how balanced your load is. Ideally each leg would be equal all the time, this never happens but you get it close. Ive replaced many panels that had one bus visibly heat damaged and the other fine because of inadvertently overloading one leg. It will mess with you power bill too. Sorry Im off on a tangent here.. lol.. just trying to give you the reasoning behind it. Be safe..

Thanks again LanserElectric for your info and logical advice. I too have seen the regular breaker fingers blue but I wonder if they were due to improper balancing or overloading with high amperage drawing loads. Being a carpenter/builder for over 30 years I have always been amazed at what us tradesmen have tried to shove on a circuit or two. I am surprised more houses haven't had fires before they are even finished construction. In my proposed garage the 20 amp circuits will get used a fair bit with power tools including table saw which I generally try to run on a separate 240v circuit if the motor can be wired in that configuration. My large portable table saw will only run on the 120v plugs. I don't normally run more than one tool at once but I would still feel more comfortable with 2-20amp circuits in the garage on regular size breakers just in case I get more than one thing going at once. Sometimes I will retrofit the table saw or construction heater plugs ends to fit the welder plug but that is only on a plug in plug out basis as the welder breaker is 50 amp, Table saw sure spins nice under a load though lol. Thanks for the reminder of the panel load balancing tips as it is good advice with regards to having a safe setup organized setup. How do you normally tap in your amp meter on the two panel legs one at a time. I had a bit of a problem with the ad for the quad breaker too stating that you could throw the heater or AC on the middle 2-pole breaker. I wish they would back that up with a copy of the testing they did to show that the heat build up was not significantly higher than the regular breakers. I noticed the quads do have heat escape holes on the bottom and wire connection side. What did you think of my thoughts on using the 15/20-20/15 quad on that kitchen circuit as described above? I doubt whether both 20 amp circuits will be used at the same time and if they were it would only be for short periods. If I had a use for the Siemens 100Amp 32/64 panel in the short term I would just replace it with there larger 100 amp 40/80 panel as I only have 4-5 circuits wired into it at this stage. I do have a cottage build project coming up on one of my properties and I have access to natural gas there so there won't be all the heating/water heater/stove/dryer loads so the 100 amp 32/64 may be plenty there. I could also just spend around $45 and tap in the Siemens EQL8100D 8/16 panel and carry on. I believe I can add that to the tap box without a disconnect as the main 200amp service disconnect switch will be a few feet away.

Thanks

Man, Im sorry, but some of your canadian terminology befuddles me a bit. A few paragraph spacing might help.

I would put large tool loads on dedicated circuits.

If you cannot find 4 single pole ckts with low loads to put on twins and make room, sounds like you need a bigger pnl. I usually install 42 ckt pnls, 30 never seems to be enough and they don't cost much more.

If your garage is more of a shop and has a bunch of tools then run a 100a subfeed to a panel in the garage big enough to accommodate your large tools on dedicated ckts. You won't be using them all at once and this will be a more user friendly system.

I am trying to figure out your question here:

"How do you normally tap in your amp meter on the two panel legs one at a time"

Unless the lug is specifically marked as suitable for multiple conductors (usually a keyhole vs. a round shape) you should not put more than one wire in a lug. They make what are called feed through panels that have another set of lugs on the bottom for a large subpanel.

If the subpanel is 125a or less then I would suggest a breaker in the panel and sub feed it that way.

Overheated breakers or bus can be from any number of reasons. I can't speculate there, either the appliance was hot, the connection loose, corroded, etc. Could be all sorts of reasons.

Those saws are intermittent loads, and unless you are building cabinets all day frequently I would still think that's a better choice than a heater.

Hope this helps. I am going out of town for the weekend to start a new job, but Ill check back early next week. Good luck!

Hi LanderElectric Good luck with your new job I hope all goes well and it pays good.

Sorry if I confused you with my last post. I think I was using the universal terminology of two much work and not enough rest,lol.

I never intended to befuddle you as following dictionary description.

befuddle
1. to confuse, muddle, or perplex
2. to make stupid with drink

befuddle - be confusing or perplexing to; cause to be unable to think clearly; "These questions confuse even the experts"; "This question completely threw me"; "This question befuddled even the teacher"

I hope you can clear you head of the confusion I may have brought on before you get cracking on your new job (ha ha).

Sorry again.

But if you want to get befuddled a bit then I should send you down a copy of our "Electrical code Simplified" Book.

It is a very informative book for residential wiring but I find it could be very confusing for some to go over the different methods of wiring kitchen plugs as indicated above. For some wiring their own home they may be tempted to just remove the kitchen from the blueprint for fear of failing the electrical inspection (lol). What is on the table for next year "Wiring trends and designs for your kitchen plugs". For years 15 amp breaker 14/3 split receptacles have worked but now the 12/2 20 amp breaker protected is getting the push. My biggest curiosity is if over the next couple of years they start to make 20 amp GFIC outlets that you can split into two separate circuits on the same plug outlet then will they start running 12/3 wire split receptacle circuits to add yet another method of wiring up the kitchen plugs.

The GFIC plug required on either side of the kitchen sink within a certain distance just came up in the later issues of the code book. I think it is a probably a good safety decision but that leaves a lot of older house out there that will still get an pretty amazing light show if they happen to drop there toasters in a kitchen sink full of water as well as the usual possibility of ground shock handling electrical items with wet hands. (Please do not try this at home)

Our Ontario Electrical Code book up here seems to bend the rules a bit especially with the wire and breaker sizes for baseboard heaters. According to what some of the other forum members state about the recommendations for proper wire sizes there should be houses with baseboard heaters burning down like dry grass on a hot day that have their baseboard heaters wired up according to our code book. I will put that topic in a future post as I am very interested in feedback on the subject.

Regarding your statement.


I am trying to figure out your question here:

"How do you normally tap in your amp meter on the two panel legs one at a time"

What I was referring to was your load balancing test tips that you were performing with your clamp on amp meter. I was trying to probe you whether you put on two clamp on amp meters (one one each 120V leg) in the same test day or do you test one leg one day and the other leg the following day. I was also trying to inquire where you prefer to clamp your amp meter on.

I wasn't referring to put two conductors in one connector. If you can take a peak at the picture I included of the tap box (distribution box) there are three other smaller connector lugs beside the biggest lug. One of those smaller lugs is now used for the new Siemens 32/64 100 amp sub panel. That leaves two smaller lugs left over. All the smaller lugs will fit 100 amp wire no problem.

Regarding your comment about if the garage is more of a shop then it might be better to run 100 amp sub panel. I am staring to think in a similar manor here. If you happen to find a spare moment look at my latest post where I am asking advice on a 100 amp sub panel to the garage. In that post I was also was asking whether I need conduit protection to run #2/3 with sheathing in a chase at the back of the basement to feed a possible 100 amp sub panel in the garage.

I have to agree with you that I should have gone with the Siemens 40/80 panel but I thought the smaller one would be enough since most of the upstairs is on the "Stab Lok" 40 space panel. At this point unless I remove the new Siemens 32/64 panel I will have to squeeze things in. I think I can do it between the original panel upstairs and the new panel downstairs.

If I can't fit it in then the first two choices that come to my mind that do not require me to up size the new Siemens 32/64 panel would be as follows.

1- Add a Siemens 8/16 100amp sub panel beside the Seimens 32/64 sub panel. This panel would be feed straight from the tap box and located with in 10 feet of the main disconnect. I can't see feeding this from the new Siemens 100 amp 32/64 sub panel via a breaker as that would take up two breaker spaces and that also means I would have 100 amp sub panel feeding a smaller 100 amp sub panel.

2- Run some 100 amp wire from the tap box out to the garage and connect it to a 100 amp sub panel with a 100 amp breaker or disconnect ahead of it. I am thinking at this point that might be the better way to go as it would take the breaker total down on the new Siemens 100 amp sub panel the fastest and give me the added convenience of having the breakers close at hand to me in the garage just in case I pop one off. I do at times run the table saw for hours on end with continuous lumber ripping but I very rarely pop a breaker as over the years I have learned the fine balance between overloading the saw and speed. Buying a separate #6/2 wire for the welder to run all the way from the other side of the basement would not be cheap as it is and that money can go to towards the 100 amp feeder wire for a garage sub panel and then just run a shorter #6/2 to the welder plug.

With your statement

Overheated breakers or bus can be from any number of reasons. I can't speculate there, either the appliance was hot, the connection loose, corroded, etc. Could be all sorts of reasons.

We can all speculate and agree with the obvious causes for breaker overload. I was more curious in hearing feedback whether there was more solid evidence that the quad and twin breakers were failing in the field due to heat overload. I do however see your logic in trying to put the smaller intermittent loads on them. Point well taken.

What was your thoughts on the quad breaker used as described below

Can the 15/20-20/15 quad (Siemens Q21520CTNC) with the middle two breakers being 2 pole common trip as they have the tie bar. Can I use the middle 2-pole to connect the 12/3 wire for the two 20 amp 120v kitchen plug non split receptacle circuits? Red wire to one pole and black to the other pole and white to common. I think that still balances the load on the common. It would be similar to connecting a 15 amp split receptacle circuit breaker. The code book states that the 3-wire circuit in this situation does not need to be two pole but the breakers need to be adjacent. It does not state that you can't use a 2-pole breaker with the tiebar. Or do you feel the electrical inspector may have an issue here?

This is not asking for endorsement to use the quad in that manner often rather an inquiry to whether it would function properly in that setup instead of using a double width 2-pole breaker (two panel slots in the Siemens) or two single pole breakers to run the 12/3 wire.

Thanks to all

Cheers