Split buss residential panel

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hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
Anybody know what the logic was behind making a split buss single phase panel? I run across another one today, house was built in 1975. At that period of time for some strange reason the POCO (Georgia Power) was supplying the panels to the customer. They even have a "Property of Georgia Power" stickers on them. They have a single feed to a seperate buss in the center of the panel, with two 60 amp breakers with solid #8 or #6 looping back under the panel interior feeding two other busses, one for the top half, and one for the bottom half.
 
Mule

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
hillbilly1 said:
Anybody know what the logic was behind making a split buss single phase panel? I run across another one today, house was built in 1975. At that period of time for some strange reason the POCO (Georgia Power) was supplying the panels to the customer. They even have a "Property of Georgia Power" stickers on them. They have a single feed to a seperate buss in the center of the panel, with two 60 amp breakers with solid #8 or #6 looping back under the panel interior feeding two other busses, one for the top half, and one for the bottom half.
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Probably some other folks here that are sharper on this than me, but I believe it was just a way to cut cost on main breakers. So instead of having a large main breaker feedin the whole panel, they utilized the "6 switch rule" and had a seperate smaller main for general lighting circuits, then one for HVAC, DRYER, RANGE or what ever.
 
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hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
I'll have to take pictures of it when I take it out in a couple of weeks, Georgia Power must have got a good deal on them. All other panels I've seen from this era have had full size single mains. It's still in good shape, but adding a Jacuzzi pushes it right over the edge! The first one I saw was years ago installing a Guardian generator, load spliting has never been so much fun!
 
Mule

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
hillbilly1 said:
I'll have to take pictures of it when I take it out in a couple of weeks, Georgia Power must have got a good deal on them. All other panels I've seen from this era have had full size single mains. It's still in good shape, but adding a Jacuzzi pushes it right over the edge! The first one I saw was years ago installing a Guardian generator, load spliting has never been so much fun!
Click to expand...

Just change it out.....get that Jacuzzi go'n
 
76teach

76teach

Member
Location
Bismarck North Dakota
Cuttler-Hammer made these type of loadcenters in two models, a 4-12 and a 6-14. They were to be installed with two pole breakers for 240 volt loads from the top bus thus having either four or six mains. They look like a MLO set up, the bottom bus was for appliance, lighting and general purpose circuits fed by way of the factory jumpers to one of the top two pole positions, I believe it was the bottom left of the top bus. I think the manufacture of these loadcenters were ablolished in the 1980 code as there were various violations involving one pole breakers being installed at the top bus thus creating more than six mains and such. Many home owners with these loadcenters do not understand what they have when looking for a main breaker and become concerned that they have an illeagal panel installed in thier home.
 
ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
I helped install quite a few of these when I was young & good looking. I think cost was one of the factors because of where we installed them. I thought they were a good idea but it didn't take long to figure out those 6 mains could be abused to the point of overloading the SE conductors.
 
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jim dungar

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Wisconsin
Occupation
PE (Retired) - Power Systems
Split bus panels were very common up until the late 60's, but hey were written out of the code in the early 80's. I remember panels that had fuses for the power circuits and breakers for the lighting section.

When home were first being electrified 60A for lighting and receptacles was more than enough for most homes. Few homes had electric stoves, air conditioning, and dryers. A split bus panel meant most homeowners did not have to pay for capacity (100A breakers were very large physically and expensive) they might never need, but they could eventually add the new-fangled appliances. As manufacturing improved and volume increased and the prices and size came down, the 'single main' panel became more desirable.
 
LarryFine

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
jim dungar said:
When home were first being electrified 60A for lighting and receptacles was more than enough for most homes.
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Actually, when homes were first electrified, they got a single 2-wire 120v 30a service protected by a pair of fuses, one in each conductor. Grounding one conductor was not always done until later.
 
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jim dungar

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Wisconsin
Occupation
PE (Retired) - Power Systems
LarryFine said:
Actually, when homes were first electrified, they got a single 2-wire 120v 30a service protected by a pair of fuses, one in each conductor. Grounding one conductor was not always done until later.
Click to expand...
So my statement that 60A was 'more than enough' is accurate.:cool:
 
brantmacga

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
Georgia Power gave these panels, and the breakers, to customers to help lower the cost of and encourage the switch to electric appliances.

Since Georgia Power owns this equipment, they will pay for the cost of repairs if there is any damage to them; at least in my experience they have.
 
LarryFine

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I've seen several CH-Ch split-bus panels, and a lot of Bryant/Westinghouse/etc. panels. Some of them have had the bus split into thirds, with not one, but two 60a/2p mains for the two lighting sections.
 
Minuteman

Minuteman

Senior Member
Location
The Sooner Nation
First split-buss panel that I ever saw, was a Cutler CH, on a service call. I thought it was home made. Even told the customer so. Had the boss bid replacing it and we did the job. But the boss never told me that it was factory an not home made. Next one I saw, I was like... oh, they make these? Why?
 
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hillbilly1

Senior Member
Location
North Georgia mountains
Occupation
Owner/electrical contractor
The first one I saw years ago was a QO, this ones a ITE, kinda weird as the two mains are dead center of the panel with wire running down to the bottom, then back up behind the buss where I think it connects, all hidden.
 
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