Electric Problem or overloading the circuit

[fzbuilder]

Hey Guys, I have a double 20 amp breaker that is connected to each other. I have one side running the kitchen and one side running the washing machine in the garage. I was told this is a standard practice, however, I have a portable hot tub that I use in my garage that I only use when not using the washing machine. The hot tub is plugged into a GFCI outlet located about 5 feet down the wall off the washer receptical that was installed before I moved in.

Here is the big problem, I have just noticed a piece of conduit that comes off the furnace that was buzzing, getting hot and it stopped after turning off the hot tub, the other day I was running items from the kitchen and the conduit got so hot it was burning paint off the wall. I shut off the double 20 amp breaker and it cooled down. It now gets hot with that breaker off and running a space heater upstairs that is on another breaker. I have the breaker off on the furnace and am stumped to what is going on or how this my be wired. The conduit going to the furnace goes to a junction box on the wall that has some sort of relay on the top of it. Any help would be great. Thanks

[cjt]

Perhaps you have a broken ground somewhere, and the route to ground via the conduit (or wires inside it) is substituting.

While I can't surmise from what you've told us whether that's truly the case, nor how the system is wired, it sounds dangerous to me. Stuff shouldn't get hot.

[RBM]

Maybe if we had pictures of the setup, the wiring in the panel to the double pole breaker, and any junction boxes in the system, opened and with wires pulled out

[Doug Miller]

Call an electrician NOW. This is a very dangerous condition, and attempting to diagnose it long-distance through the newsgroups is not likely to be productive. This time of year, you need the furnace -- but that circuit should not be turned back on until the problem has been found and fixed. Call an electrician NOW.

[AZ Nomad]

Not only that, but unlrelated circuits should never be ganged.

In anycase, if the breaker is off and the conduit heats up then you haven't shut off the correct circuit. Get an AC voltmeter and check the lines going through the conduit. Better yet, hire somebody and do it before your house burns to the ground.

[Mikepier]

First, make sure you do not have 20A breakers on 14 guage wire. If you do, change them to 15A breakers now. Thats what could be causing your conduit to get hot. Second, you should only have a double pole breaker for 220V circuits. Although technically it will still work for seperate 110V circuits, it's not proper practice. Also you might have an Edison circuit, that is 2 circuits sharing 1 neutral, so its possible that even though you shut off 1 or 2 breakers to a circuit, the neutral is still being used for your live circuit. So the space heater you were using upstairs could be using the same neutral for the circuits that you shut off. You need find out how your lines were run, particularly in that junction box.

[Nate Nagel]

I'm thinking that this might be an open neutral type situation, hence the seemingly unrelated stuff getting hot?

In any case, I concur, this is not a problem that has a clear cut troubleshooting flowchart based on what you posted, and is also capable of burning your house down if not fixed ASAP. So get someone to look at it, please.

nate

[John Grabowski]

*This is something I would need to see to figure out what is going on. Obviously there is a problem or perhaps multiple problems. My first thought is that perhaps the neutral conductor is being overloaded by having two circuits on the same phase sharing it. I'm thinking that the two circuits are connected to a twin breaker and not a double pole.

That relay might be a transformer for the low voltage control for the furnace.

You would need to start at one end or the other and identify each conductor and determine what it is being used for. I would probably start at the circuit breaker panel. An electrician could do this faster than you and identify everything that is not safe and code compliant.

Do you know if the previous homeowner did his own wiring?

[clare]

If that is the case in North America something is DEFINITELY waired wrong. With a ganged breaker, the neutral, if shared by two circuits, would be share ONLY by the two circuits on the shared breaker.

And the double pole brakers can (and should) be used with split receptacles, but NEVER with different circuits physically in different parts of the house.

And it it IS, get it rewired properly YESTERDAY if not sooner.

[Doug Miller]

Piffle. That is *not* a requirement of the U.S. NEC -- it might be of the CEC, I don't know, but it's definitely not a requirement here.

There's nothing wrong with running a 3-wire circuit from the panel to a point some distance away, then splitting it out into two individual circuits that go in opposite directions.

[trader4]

He's not a troll and exactly what is dangerous about this? What Doug has described is an Edison circuit which is a shared neutral circuit using opposite legs on two breakers and is recognized as OK under the NEC. If there is anything in the NEC that says the two sides of the circuit can't go in different directions, I'd like to see it.

In practice, I've never been a big fan of Edison circuits for a variety of reasons, but now that the NEC requires that the two breakers be ganged together, it removes one of my previous main concerns.

That advice I strongly agree with.

[Nate Nagel]

Since the NEC is now requiring AFCIs for more stuff, doesn't that pretty much rule out Edison ckts. for new construction? OR are there double AFCI breakers available?

nate

[Doug Miller]

Which is exactly what I advised the orig "Call an electrician NOW. This is a very dangerous condition."

*Do* try to keep up, eh?

[jamesgangnc]

de quoted text -

There are double ground fault breakers. Code calls fo rthem on larger hot tubs.

The hot tub needs a new dedicated circuit on a new breaker. The rest of it needs to be investigated because it sounds a lot like 14g on a

20 amp breaker possibly with a shared neutral. These hot tub companies tell people they have tubs that can be plugged into existing circuits and that's just crap.

[Twayne]

110Vac appliances, right?

A "ganged" 20A breaker? If one breaker resets, they both have to, right? Is that what you mean? That's what it sounds like and definitely is non-code, NOT standard practice, and as you're discovering can be dangerous! Such breakers are intended to provide 220Vac to some piece of equpiment, NOT as you are using it, to provide two 110Vac lines. If I'm right AND it's installed properly, the right one for you box, etc, then you will measure 220Vac between the two breaker hots, which is its intended use.

So if one breaker is overloaded and tries to break, it's going to try to take the other breaker with it, right? That's where it becomes DANGEROUS! If one breaker starts to heat up due to overload, it can't break the ckt because the other breaker ganged to it is holding it closed, especially if it's nice and cool. So who knows how high the overload will have to get before that overloaded breaker can overcome the non-overloaded breaker and open, carrying the other one along with it. Or IF it can even do so period? It's possible the overloaded breaker never will be able to overcome the holding power of the other one, and maybe never open up but simply keep on providing power until something burns open. As you are seeing. This could not happen if it were a 220Vac appliance having the problem and it were wired properly and to code.

It's easy enough to fix, IF the overloaded breaker hasn't been ruined by the overloads! Just remove the pin/screw, whatever that gangs the levers together and allow them to operate on their own. A much better fix would be to replace the ganged breaker set with two single breakers, since you're using them for 110Vac anyway. If you need

220Vac, THEN use a ganged breaker, and ONLY for the 220 equipment.

Irrelevant, but; isn't the hot tub 220V? Is this a case of mixing 110 and

220 on a ganged breaker? Ouch! Don't do that.

If I've understood you properly, that's all explained by the preceding info about ganged vs non-ganged breakers.

I hope you'll keep us advised,

Twayne

[Twayne]

PS - get a PRO in there ASAP!! And kill BOTH breakers and leave them OFF until the electrician gets there to straighten things out. That's a VERY DANGEROUS situation and a high saftey risk.

Twayne

[Twayne]

Hot conduit is NOT a sign of wrong amperage breakers! Hot conduit means there is a LOT of current trying to find earth ground! There should never be any current in it under non-fault conditions and to get hot, it's a hell of a LOT of current. I think there's more to it than those two breakers unless it's the case that one ganged breaker cannot overcome the non-overloaded one to open them up. Compliance labs routinely test conduit for 60A withstand, measureing voltage across every joint encountered, and the conduit never heated up. Something's awfully wrong and IMO very DANGEROUS there.

Thus it's a seriously miswired and dangerous ckt; agreed.

[Twayne]

You need to re-read his situatioin unless you're trolling, too.

On ganged breakers? I can't cite it, but no, that's not allowed. One ganged breaker can prevent the other, if overloaded, from breaking in time to prevent problems. It is dangerous.

Catch up your reading and if you have any reading comprehension at all, you'll understand. It appears to me you might also be a troll.

What Doug

For 220Vac, yes. For two 110V ckts, no.

If there is anything in the NEC that says the two sides of

ONLY for 220V ckts. NOT any sort of 110V ckt!

I do believe we have a troll here. Go ahead and flail, it's your liver, not mine.

Twayne

[Twayne]

If it's a ganged breaker set approved for the panel, then it can only connect to both sides of the line, resulting in 220 between the two output screws. Two next to each other breakers in almost every panel made will give the same results.

With a conduit getting hot you prescribe troubleshooting? Nuh, uh! He needs a pro and quickly. Else they could be searching thru basement rubble for keepsakes rather soon.

Twayne

[Doug Miller]

Wrong. Google "Edison circuit". Then stop giving advice on subjects you're completely ignorant of.