- Location
- Wisconsin
- Occupation
- PE (Retired) - Power Systems
I do not believe hydraulic breakers provide any advantage over thermal magnetic for probably 99.95% of branch circuit and feeder installations at 60Hz with conductors applied per the NEC.
Leviton Thermal Magnetic vs Hydraulic Magnetic Circuit Breakers
- Thread starter mswlogo
- Start date
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Wow, that is really gonna break the bank.
Hate to clue you, labor dwarfs EVERYTHING. Maybe you care about the cost difference. Consumer won’t notice it.
What’s that $80.00 on a $12k job. Pennies. They are essentially the same price.
So you are saying at 45F a Thermal Magnetic breaker will trip as (or more) accurately (say within 1%) than a Hydraulic Magnetic breaker?
And that Leviton is all BS marketing.
hbiss
EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
- Location
- Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
- Occupation
- EC
They are the new kid on the block and up against a long established market. So of course, they are going to promote the hell out of it and touting all the bells and whistles hoping it won't be another bust. Contrary to what they say, ECs don't want to carry another stock of breakers that they might use once a year. And I don't see any EC standardizing in that panel. If anything, it's a niche product aimed at high end builders looking to sell to the smart home market.
-Hal
hbiss
EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
- Location
- Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
- Occupation
- EC
What I'm saying is who cares. I can't remember when a breaker tripped in my house.
-Hal
- Location
- Wisconsin
- Occupation
- PE (Retired) - Power Systems
I am saying that we have decades, actual close to a century, of proof that a 45A thermal magnetic breaker, tested per UL489, will protect conductors properly applied per the NEC.
To my knowledge there have been no major breaker manufacturers offering hydraulic breakers in panelboard style construction.
And yes, sometimes marketing is simply marketing.
Thanks to my FPE panel I can make the same claim even with my Romex smoking
readydave8
re member
- Location
- Clarkesville, Georgia
- Occupation
- electrician
I agree
You know of course the wifi smart breaker does not connect directly to the phone. It would upload everything to the cloud. Then the phone connects to the cloud with the app to get your breaker data. They're not going to do that for free. Lots of early services promising that are gone. The ones that remain, the message looks something like this.
- Location
- Bremerton, Washington
- Occupation
- Master Electrician
I would stick with Sq D for now. They are an established brand with a good product line, and readily available.
Give Leviton 5 years to see if this panel is still available.
Now I do like Leviton SPDS and have installed hundreds of them
Give Leviton 5 years to see if this panel is still available.
Now I do like Leviton SPDS and have installed hundreds of them
Service is free today. Correct, they could change in the future. Absolutely love the panel. I’m well aware of how Apps work, that’s what I do for a living.
If my Radon Fan stops drawing power I’m notified.
If my Well Pump draws power for too long, I’m notified.
Those two things alone make it worth every penny.
My new fridge just notified me the temp is running to high because some packaging was hanging out and door not sealing tight. Love connected devices. More connected the better.
brantmacga
Señor Member
- Location
- Georgia
- Occupation
- Former Child
I think the Leviton stuff is interesting, but not something I would use.
For energy monitoring and alerts I use the Square D wiser energy monitor (same as Sense) and I think it’s pretty great. And also relatively inexpensive. It also integrates with Home Assistant.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
For energy monitoring and alerts I use the Square D wiser energy monitor (same as Sense) and I think it’s pretty great. And also relatively inexpensive. It also integrates with Home Assistant.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I think Sense is great. I have two of them. But it can’t do a lot of stuff this can and this is much more precise. And Sense doesn’t do well with variable loads or constant loads.
It might see one cycle or two of a dishwasher but not the whole thing. It never saw my pool because it’s variable speed and it runs 24/7 when in season. It needs to see things cycle at stable levels to detect it. It never saw my Electric car (all 4), well it did a little, when I opened the door the car would use some fixed load that it did detect but it never detected charging (which varies). Never saw my HVAC with variable speed blower and variable speed Compressor.
Best thing Sense did was total usage and very good at calculating your “always on”. The always on stuff is often what really chews up watts. It helped me eliminate a bunch of those and saved me a ton.
It would never work with my GeoThermal HVAC, constant pressure well pump or new variable speed compressor fridge and more. The loads are too complex to isolate.
VirutalElectrician
Senior Member
- Location
- Mpls, MN
- Occupation
- Sparky - Trying to be retired
Pay no attention to hbiss. He's a crotchety old fart who doesn't like anything new. Pretty sure he still has fuses with knob and tube in his house.Plastic? There is no more plastic than any other panel I've seen.
Electrician did comment that he absolutely loves working with the panel.
I wanted the smart breakers to monitor GeoThermal, EV and a few other big items. I plan to put the hub in this week. Admittedly Smart breakers are excessively expensive though. The other breakers are are all typically prices.
Gimmick? I doubt it.
If it matters, the Leviton Smart Breakers are all hydraulic. You used to be able to get some of them in thermal as well, but I haven't seen any of them in a long time.
I got in a couple of pretty crappy Square D panels lately, and they also have a recall going on right now for some of their plug on neutral panels. So having the same design for the last 5 or 6 decades doesn't seem to mean quality, like some would have you believe.
VirutalElectrician
Senior Member
- Location
- Mpls, MN
- Occupation
- Sparky - Trying to be retired
You catch on quick. Many Electricians will charge $160 for an outlet, the refuse to use a good quality $2 box and use a 50cent blue box instead.
hbiss
EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
- Location
- Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
- Occupation
- EC
Really? The house next door to me sold to a new owner. Original owner had all those techy toys, Whole house Generac with ATS and buried propane tank (power never goes off here), solar panels on the roof, cameras all over the place that he could monitor from his phone, alarm system etc.
New owner wanted to know before he closed "how much to get rid of all this crap".
That's what normal people think of that junk. And the new owner is nowhere near my age.
-Hal
VirutalElectrician
Senior Member
- Location
- Mpls, MN
- Occupation
- Sparky - Trying to be retired
You could look at other smart devices that do energy monitoring. Enbrighten makes a 40amp Zwave smart relay that does energy monitoring plus you can turn the connected circuit on or off at will. They run $100-$140, so price comparable to Leviton Smart Breakers.
Readily available? Guess you didn't try to buy any the last couple years.
VirutalElectrician
Senior Member
- Location
- Mpls, MN
- Occupation
- Sparky - Trying to be retired
Yeah, I guess that's why there's massive demand for all that stuff. Great part is, we all get to make up our own definition of what normal is. Your power never goes out? So I guess living in New York you some how got lucky and missed that big power outage back in 2003? Living in a snow and thunderstorm state, and stating that your power never goes out, is pretty much a lie.
I suppose you don't buy fire insurance either since your house has never burnt down?
- Location
- Wisconsin
- Occupation
- PE (Retired) - Power Systems
The longevity of a type of product speaks more to the practicality of its design rather than to any short term perceived manufacturing quality control issues.
Go ahead and use new technologies and products just don't be surprised that the majority does not join you immediately.
VirutalElectrician
Senior Member
- Location
- Mpls, MN
- Occupation
- Sparky - Trying to be retired
It's not perceived. It's real. The recall is perceived you think? The pictures I posted of the poorly constructed QO panel are perceived?
The longevity of a design doesn't necesarrily speak to it's practicality or usefulness. It can have a lot to do with the expense of changing that design. Tooling of new equipment is expensive, as is training for it. We have a lot of crappy stuff in this world simply because it's expensive or difficult to change. Take the Imperial VS metric system for example. The Metric system is much better, but changing it was too difficult for the old crotchety types who couldn't comprehend that water freezing at 0 made more sense than 32.
Human stubborness and the unwillingness to accept change is horrible for the human race.
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