Greetings. My wife and I purchased our home a little over a year ago. The inspector didn't see anything unusual. Now that I've had time to do some bumping around and some minor improvements, I've discovered what I think may be an odd situation.
I'll diagram the wiring below. The home has 100A service off of a pole. It used to come in through the service entrance to our main panel in the basement. Circuits are taken off of both legs and everything is happy.
The previous owners added an outdoor hot tub. To facilitate this, they had an electrician add a "sub panel" in line outside. They then added a circuit for the hot tub. When we purchased the house, we didn't want to keep the hot tub, so they moved it out for us.
Logically, now, wouldn't the inside old main panel be considered a sub panel because it is fed from a breaker in the new box outside? Here is where my concern is. Since our main (inside) panel is coming from a 100A breaker in the outside box, our whole house is now drawing all from jsut the left leg of our service. The right leg is completely empty. The diagram should help:
UTILITY POWER H H N H H N H H N METER-BOX H H N H H N H H N ------------- |outdoor box| |added on | New outside box added on to service hot tub ggg| H H N | g | H H N | g | H H N | g | H H N | 100A breaker feeds inside panel from left leg g | 100A H N | g | h h n | Right leg is empty g ------------- (I have since added a 15A GFCI breaker for g h h n outdoor pond pump and lights) g h h n g h h n g h h n g h h n g ------------- g |indoor | g |master box | Original inside breaker box g |full of | ggg|circuits | Now fed only from left leg breaker in upper box g | h h n | g | h h n | g | h h n | g | | g ------------- g EARTH
Is uneven leg load a problem? This is an odd setup? It was installed by an electrician, not a DIY job. I like having the outside panel, it allows easy landscap wiring and such. But if an uneven leg load is a problem, something will have to change. Is there a breaker that will span both legs to feed the inside box with power from both legs, but still break when needed?
Thanks to all of you with the patience to get this far.
Chris