Code Violation?

[Walter R.]

Hi

I live in California. Some time a go I replaced a 20 A GF Breaker in my main entrance Panel (200 A). I connected the black and white wires from the house to the correct terminals on the breaker. However, I connected the curly white pigtail on the GF breaker to the other white wire (neutral?) going to the house, with a wire nut.

Later on I read somewhere that the NEC prohibits wire nuts in main panels. Is this correct? Would a crimp connection (instead of a wire nut) between the white wire and the pigtail be legal? When I press the test button, the breaker disconnects properly.

I don't want to be called on this when I sell my house.

Thanks for any input

[zxcvbob]

The key phrase is here is "I read somewhere". There's nothing specifically wrong or prohibited about having wirenuts (or any other type of splices, for that matter) in a panel. If you have too many splices, I guess you could exceed the maximum wire fill, but not by splicing a few small wires.

But if you have to splice wires in the panel, you need to take a long hard look at what you are doing because it is unusual. IMHO, it indicates that you *might* be doing something wrong. (In your case I think you are wiring the breaker wrong.)

Best regards, Bob

[newsgroups01REMOVEME]

First thing, California is like it's own country with codes and regs, so meeting the NEC requirements doesn't make you met Cal's codes.

Second, when it comes to working with the codes, if you aren't positive you did it right, then most likely you did something wrong. Even if the only wrong thing was you did not know the code to start.

Seek professional advice.

hth

tom @

[Richard B. (Bruce) Leiby]

_________________________________________ Your mistake is evident (to a pro) with the aforementioned statement!!!!! The "curly pigtail on the GFCI circuit breaker" should be terminated on the neutral bar of the circuit breaker panel where you have "originated" the branch circuit at!! The hot wire (black) AND the neutral wire (white) that are in your home run romex (conduit, MC cable or whatever) that leaves the panel, are BOTH to be terminated on their individual terminals on the GFCI circuit breaker, itself. If you look at the product literature that comes with every GFCI circuit breaker OR GFCI receptacle, it will become clear as you read thru it and look at the illustrations.

Bruce

[maradcliff]

I agree California has their own set of rules for everything and its always tougher than anywhere else.

Unless the NEC recently changed this, I have used wirenuts in breaker boxes all my life. They are normally needed for one of two reasons. If a single breaker needs to be moved in order to install a dual type (240 breaker), and the wire on the single is too short. Or, if there is more than one wire that needs to go to the same breaker. I have one of these in my own garage, because the wire that feeds the 5 lights in the main garage are one romex, and the 2 lights in the garage addition are another romex. Two neutrals can fit under one screw, but not two hots. So, a wirenut solved that.

Mark

[Tekkie]

posted for all of us....

Depends on the listing of the breaker.