No Room In Electrical Panel - Quick Fix

how's it going you guys it's Scott with everyday home repairs and I want to approach a very common topic that many of us homeowners are going to have to deal with in the near future as we start to add electric car charging solar panels power walls we start to max out our electrical panels and now we need to make more space now before you just start stabbing a bunch of wires and Breakers I'm going to bring in my friend Joel wallsman from Jefferson Electric out of Indianapolis Indiana one of the best in the business to walk us through how to do this safely and to code so if you're a homeowner frustrated or confused about how to add circuits to your panel let me show you how to do it in fact I've seen many home inspectors wrongly call out breaker code violations so let me address that as well and how you can overcome that challenge in this case we've got a 200 amp disconnect on the exterior of the home make sure you turn off main power so you safely remove your electrical panel cover now one little trick for you is I'm using my left elbow to secure the electrical panel cover with pressure while I'm removing this last screw what I don't want to do is drop my cover and damage it or knock off a bunch of Breakers I want to remove it in a controlled fashion just like that rocking it off the surface first let's go over assessing our situation a lot of electrical panels are not labeled or are incorrectly labeled next we're going to go over your three options for combining circuits and this does depend on the brand of panel you have and some of this even Pros don't know and finally we're going to do it I have four circuits I'm going to combine down to two on this eaten panel because this homeowner is getting some massive upgrades and needs more space assessing first my go-to always for combining circuits is lighting loads old incandescent lighting loads were 10 times heavier than modern LED loads so when you're looking for lightly loaded circuits to bring together LED lights and lighting circuits are the first key what do you do if you don't have any lighting circuits look for other lightly loaded circuits in this case I've got smoke detectors which are dedicated but are not required to be dedicated by code in this jurisdiction check with your local standards and photocell bedroom three so it tells me there are a few exterior lights on with bedroom three I'll be combining those into a circuit things to stay away from sump pumps furnaces kitchens and bathrooms you want those circuits to be strong and in fact by code they're required check out National electrical code article 210.50 and 52 for detailed explanation on that option one and I'm going to show you this so stick around is using a pigtail properly sized to your circuit and a Wago 2211 least intimidating option if you're a homeowner if you've got a Square D panel unlike my Eaton brand panel squirty panels allow for 2 conductors per breaker in some common instances that's both home line and squared eqo now if you've got a Square D panel and you've been called out by a home inspector they blanket that that's always called out however if you need to prove it and support what you've just done in the panel you go to the manufacturer's website pull the data sheet and there in the data sheet it will list the number and size of conductors that that breaker is rated for now the third one is the part I see a lot of Pros getting wrong and its use of piggyback is the nickname or tandem Breakers in an electrical panel like this to create additional circuit space and I'll show you the violations and issues that I come across there so here's option one with the panel and the breakers off using a number two square drive screwdriver to loosen the terminations from there I'm going to use my Wago and pigtail it's a 14 gauge pigtail because it's a 15 amp circuit matches I'm going to remove my conductors and slip them under the Wago give a tug test to make sure they're fully seated and also I don't want any exposed conductor here so I'm happy with that if you've never seen a Wagga before check out the link in the description Scott's Amazon store there's going to be starter kits there with two Port three-port Wago lever nuts to get you going on them I'm gonna bring my pigtail in landed on the breaker using my number Square two square drive and tighten it down you don't want to over tighten it just snug approximately 15 inch pounds now we've got an available breaker the breaker just gets rocked out of place if it's too tight to do that sometimes you can use a little extra leverage with a flathead screwdriver to get it started now if you're adding a 240 volt double pole breaker you might need to reshuffle the deck once your circuit combinations are complete to get two spaces side by side make sure you update your panel labels to maintain currency if you're just going to keep this open for future use make sure that you need to put a panel KO closer in place to protect accidental contact with live Parts when you're done third option is using tandem or piggyback Breakers and I'm going to drop two more nuggets that Pros don't know right at the end so let me show you something about electrical panels check this out this component back here is called the bus and the bus is dissimilar as it goes down it actually transitions there's a point at which it does not allow for Tandem piggyback Breakers you can see the separation where tandem Breakers are allowed that Notch indicates approved and the lack of notching there disapproved proved disapproved so inserting this eaten breaker into any slot in the bus other than the bottom five on either side is a violation of the national electrical code because it's a violation of this panel's manufacturing listing and labeling so up here what you get if you try to jam the piggyback breaker in is oh can't do it without field modifications which is a violation down lower in the bottom five slots the piggyback fits combining circuits is so common at least 50 percent of the jobs we do because of the ever increasing power demands in a home one of those components that I think every home will have in the next 10 years is called a smart panel if you want to know what it costs how to do it and some killer features check out this video here and thanks for joining us today catch you on the next one guys

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 926,431

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Id: tF4sVKf_D34

Length: 7min 21sec (441 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 14 2022