Non-ctl in a ctl load center

[mark32]

So, an acquaintance had a small gen ATS installed years ago by someone he claims was an electrician. I guess the permit was still open, so the town contacted him and set up a date for an inspector to come and look things over. Among other things, he pointed out that he had two or more grounded conductors under the same individual terminal in the neutral bar within this ATS. He was also red tagged for having a number of romex homeruns entering this enclosure without it's outer jacket in place. The original installer had passed away, so he's bending my ear for some help. At first, I couldn't understand why there were so many neutrals doubled up on the neutral bar. And then I was taken back a bit when I saw that the entire panel was all twins. I asked him to send me the specs on the panel. It turns out, it's only a 12/12 panel, which then made sense as to why there wasn't a large enough neutral bar from the factory to accommodate all of the circuits he jammed into this little panel. Years ago, I came to the conclusion that one is not allowed to install a non-ctl twin in a panel installed after 1968, which is a date I had taken from the packaging on a Square D non-ctl twin breaker. So, did this inspector overlook this, or is it okay to stick a non-ctl twin in a current ctl assembly?

 

[kwired]

The permit was for installing the ATS. Sounds like they are picking on some items that were likely present before the ATS was installed, where does the inspecting stop in such a case? Around here they typically wouldn't bother making you change those sort of things. If any new conductors or anything that needed moved wasn't up to code they will want it done right, but most existing things need to be a fairly obvious hazard to cause a change order for them.

This is getting close to the point of nothing can be done other than replace the load center with one with more spaces, or at least capable of accepting CTL tandems. Although that maybe isn't bad thing anyway. Doubled up neutrals has some potential issues but mostly for when someone is working on things while energized and isn't otherwise going to be something likely to burn the place down. I'm all for straightening out anything that isn't going to take much of an effort though should it be something already existing.

 

[jim dungar]

Years ago, I came to the conclusion that one is not allowed to install a non-ctl twin in a panel installed after 1968, which is a date I had taken from the packaging on a Square D non-ctl twin breaker.

It has always been up to the installer to make sure they did not install too many circuits.

 

[mark32]

Thanks for stopping by Jim and Kwired! All that I discussed is part of the new installation. I'm including a pic of how it looked upon inspection. Once more, if I see a loadcenter with a 12/12 designation, that tells me the manufacturer does not want more than 12 circuits in their panel, thus, you will see the buss is not notched for a ctl twin. At this point, I am not sure if you (Jim or Kwired) agree or disagree with that thinking.