Fuse box question

[rile]

I am doing a minor remodeling job in my 50+ year old house. There was an electric heater in the basement that is not used anymore and I will use it's dedicated circuit for wiring. Now comes the problem. The heater had it's own fuse box wired from the main circuit breaker box. In that box is the normal load side and line side. There were two 30 amp fuses in it. One fuse connected the two hot lugs and one fuse connected the two neutral lugs. Why is there a fuse on the neutral side? If I replaced the two 30 amp fuses with 15 or 20 amp fuses, would that give me a usable circuit?

[Ralph Mowery]

The neutral should NEVER be fused. Are you sure the circuit is not a 220 volt circuit and they are just putting a fuse in each side of the line and there is no neutral in the box ? There may not be a neutral in the box and if the wires are white and black, the white wire is actuall the other hot wire ? If so , they should have put some black or red tape on it to designate it as being a hot wire.

[Rick]

There probably isn't-it's a 220 volt circuit.

Only if it's wired properly. Find someone who knows what they are doing and start over...

[Lawrence Wasserman]

Are you sure that this is not a 220V heater? If it is then a fuse on each leg would be normal.

[newsman]

[SQLit]

50 years ago and more, there were people that put fuses in the neutrals usually in knob and tube. I have seen it during rewires. Not something that is done today nor should it have been done then. But there were lots of places that it was.

Water heaters are usually do not have a neutral to them in older residential wiring. ( they do on new homes in my area now.) No one can tell this guy if it will be safe from the description.

Rile you need a pro to look at the situation and tell you.

[rile]

It was not wired to a water heater. It was a small electric heater used to heat part of a basement. The 220 circuit makes sense though. I guess what threw me was the fact that the receptacle the heater used looked like an ordinary two prong 110 outlet. As soon as I can locate my multi-meter, I'll verify what has been suggested.

[Rick]

though.

locate

Interesting how a lot of people (including me) assumed it was a water heater, lol....

So, yeah, check the voltage.

[SQLit]

Sorry about the water heater reference. Still most 240/230/220v volt heaters do not have an neutral. Which makes these circuits useless for any outlets.