Sharing the neutral?
- Thread starter Benton
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- Licensed Electrician
210.4(B) is probably what you need to look at, but it doesn't forbid sharing a neutral. It requires a common trip on the circuits.
If by 3? circuit you mean MWBC, 2011 doesn't prohibit such, but either have to use a 3-pole breaker or install a handle-tie on 1-pole breakers.
chris kennedy
Senior Member
- Location
- Miami Fla.
- Occupation
- 60 yr old tool twisting electrician
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
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- Owner/electrical contractor
Not for the wire manufactures!:lol:
chris kennedy
Senior Member
- Location
- Miami Fla.
- Occupation
- 60 yr old tool twisting electrician
You ever look at who sits on CMP 5?
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
Just like all of the panels, no more than 1/3 of the members can be from any single group such as manufacturers, users, labor, ect. It takes a 2/3's majority to report any proposal as accepted.
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
That still doesn't change the fact it is a bonus for wire manufactures!
Installing a common tie handle is cheaper than the wire. I am not sure if manufacturers have seen an increase in sales???
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
Most customers do not want it that way, engineers especially, in order to turn off one circuit, all three have to be turned off, so instead of a small outage, a big one happens.
- Occupation
- Licensed Electrician
Close enough. Right? Man! At least give me credit for giving the article.
So what? The code is about safety, not convenience or power reliability. MWBC on single pole breakers without handle ties are bad news. Too easy to de-energize one leg and think the entire circuit is de-energized or break the neutral when two legs are still energized. I know an "electrician" should know better, but this is not the first instance where the code has been "dumbed-down" to try to protect the untrained....
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
The thing is, even if your mwbc only goes to the first j box, then splits out from there, if you want to add some thing on one of the branches, and not breaking the neutral at that point, you are still required to have the handle ties and turn off all three circuits, and yes it is there to protect the untrained from themselfs, that is why 70E came about. Most arc flash accidents come from somebody doing something stupid, and before somebody gets their underwear in a wad, I said most, not all.
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- Occupation
- Licensed Electrician
No they are not. We have a century of safe operation of MWBC. The code was, and should be, about safe installation and operation of electrical installations. Somewhere somebody working on a circuit is going to do something stupid no matter what kind it is.
As I said before- MWBC are not hard to recognize or work on safely. If you don't know what you are dealing with and get bit; that's a you problem.
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