Sunday, May 29, 2016

Circuit Breaker Box

 For some reason I was sweating nervous about installing my circuit breaker box. It didn't look quite like any of the diagrams online, so I couldn't follow their instructions blow-for-blow... and I really, really, really didn't want to do it wrong. Electricity has the tendency to inspire fearful respect, and if you're an amateur electrician who feels otherwise, then you're probably also a fool.

Just sayin'.

However, I finally pulled on my grown-up pants, buckled down, and did it. As it turns out, it wasn't all that complicated. In fact, it was a lot easier than the rest of the devices I've installed so far!

Or maybe I did it completely wrong. Let's say that's not the case.

I won't go into the nitty gritty details, because I'm not an expert and there's aren't very many details, anyway. Helpfully, the circuit breaker box itself had a little diagram explaining where everything was supposed to be, so I mostly followed that. But here are the basics:

The main idea is that each cable entering the box goes to its own circuit breaker. The black (hot) wire gets screwed into the circuit breaker, the white (neutral) wire gets screwed into the neutral bus bar (the metal bank of screws in front), and the bare copper (ground) wire gets screwed into the ground bus bar in back.

The curly white wires are for the GFCI and AFCI circuit breakers. For those breakers, you screw both the black and the white wires into the circuit breaker, and then the curly white wire gets screwed into the neutral bus bar.

The big supply cable has two hot wires, black and red, and each has its own spot on the double circuit breaker in the middle. This circuit breaker is rated for 60 amps; the supply will actually be 50 amps, but circuit breakers are only capable of sustaining a continual load of 80% of their labeled maximum, so it works out perfectly.

My box had little plastic slots to pull the yellow Romex cables through that clamp them in place automatically. The main supply cable had to come in through a 1" round knockout, then I had to install a metal cable clamp to hold it. There shouldn't be any real danger of these cables being pulled to and fro, but the clamp is only a couple bucks and anyway, them's the rules.

And here's a parting tip: label the cables! I used a Sharpie to write the abbreviated name of the circuit on a part of the yellow jacket that wouldn't be stripped away. I had already labeled the circuit breakers when I installed them in the box (just a matter of pushing them into place), so this way I could make sure I was matching everything up correctly.

When the day comes that I finally plug in, hopefully everything will work as planned!









3 comments:

  1. I'm so impressed with your amateur electrician-ing! I'm scared enough to mess with our existing, already installed circuit breaker!

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    Replies
    1. As if we needed additional proof of your wisdom! ;-)

      Knowing that there was zero potential for electrocution (at the moment, anyway) was a big comfort to me. That's one of the nice things about tiny houses on wheels: you can unplug completely to do your electrical work, unlike a normal home.

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  2. I love this post because you started out kind of nervous but went for it. Learning new things and going outside of your comfort zone will happen a lot when you are building something from scratch but I love that you went for it. I have my fingers crossed for a good result once you finally plug it all in!

    Neville @ Electrical Experts

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