Re: 6 disconnect rule violation?
Originally posted by websparky:
The panelboard contains circuits with a neutral conductor and they total more than 10% of the 6 breakers.
This is a very easy thing to understand but based on "this has always been allowed" and "I have never been sighted for this before" mentality, everyone thinks this just can't be right.
Those aren't the reasons why I allow this installation. I allow it because
my interpretation of these code sections is that it is allowed. Yes this is a lighting and appliance panelboard, but since the feeder has overcurrent protection not greater than the rating of the panelboard, the exception to 408.16(A) gives the permission to omit individual protection. We are not using the panelboard as service equipment. And as such, we are not violating the listing of the panel. In the IAEI 1&2 Family Dwelling Electrical Systems book, J. Phillip Simmons describes this requirement like this:
"The general requirement in Section 225.36 is that the service disconnecting mean be suitable for use as service equipment. This generally relates to the construction of the panelboard. It will have a neutral terminal bar that can be bonded to the enclosure and that will permit the grounded system conductor to be connected to a grounding electrode conductor."
There is nothing magical about a panelboard being suitable for service equipment. It only relates to the
ability to bond the enclosure to the neutral bar. This is as opposed to a panelboard which is suitable for use
only as service equipment, where the the enclosure and neutral bar are
permanently bonded together.
If I am reading the section correctly the use of single pole breakers are required to be on a multiwire circuit. Circuits that are not part of a multiwire circuit are not allowed to have their handles tied together.
To help me better understand this multiwire circuit I ask;
A circuit that supplies receptacles and another circuit supplies lights. Both leave the panel in different cables or raceways with one phase and one neutral conductor. Are these two circuits a multiwire circuit?
If these two circuits are not a multiwire circuit then they cannot be tied together as outlined in 225.33(B).
Now I have a shed that is supplied with one 120 volt circuit that supplies lights and receptacles. This circuit enters the building and lands in the switch box leaves and runs across the building to the receptacles. Does this comply to 225? Is a disconnect required?
You're right Mike, the circuit breakers
must be part of a multiwire branch circuit to have handle ties installed. The two circuits you describe leaving the panel in separate raceways or cables are not a multiwire branch circuit. They are 2-wire branch circuits. As for your 120 volt circuit to the shed, yes a disconnect is required and the switch is it. The exception to 225.38 permits snap switches or sets of 3 or 4-way switches as the disconnecting means for that installation. The switch would have to disconnect both the lights and receptacles. You could do the same thing by running a multiwire branch circuit to the shed, split the lights and receptacles up, and install 2 15 ampere switches to act as the disconnecting means. The multiwire branch circuit can be considered a single circuit as stated in 225.30. And, you only have 2 swipes of the hand.
(Edited for spelling and syntax)
[ December 16, 2005, 11:27 AM: Message edited by: mvannevel ]
