Discovered this when a kitchen GFCI outlet permanently tripped and realized I had to shut off two breakers to cut power to the circuit.
Two 20A breakers, from the same bus bar, both feed into a 10-3 aluminum romex cable coming into my house (aluminum because the house was built in the late 70s). This cable powers the outlets in my kitchen. I don't think whoever installed this knew what they were looking at in the kitchen. At every outlet they wired the two different hots (red+black) together via the screw terminals. Luckily both of these circuits together only power 7 outlets (6 general purpose + 1 for the refrigerator).
What I'm currently doing: Going through and removing all the bridge's between the two hots. General purpose outlets will be powered off of the red branch, while black is reserved for the outlet behind the refrigerator.
Is this safe? I'm aware that the current is additive on the neutral line. With 10 guage aluminum, would reducing both breakers to be 15amp be sufficient?
Thanks.
Submitted July 13, 2015 at 08:22PM by mhayenga http://ift.tt/1DbU3kX electricians
No comments:
Post a Comment