If the garage panel has 6 or less breakers (a two-pole breaker with the
handles tied only counts as one), it doesn't need a main disconnect.

Best regards,
Bob


Nate Nagel wrote:
The garage is detached; the subpanel doesn't have a main breaker, it's
just fed through a regular 100A breaker. The home inspector didn't seem
to think it was weird, except for the fact that the ground terminal
strip was mounted too close to the front of the panel.

nate

RBM wrote:
The breaker in the main panel protects the wiring to the garage. If
the garage is detached, it's required to have a disconnect in it. If
it's attached, the electrician probably got a good deal on a panel
with a main breaker



"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...

My bedrooms are all on the same circuit, and the only other room on
that circuit is the bathroom. I would like to split that off anyway
so in my case I really don't care. At the same time I do that I will
probably pull another homerun from the 2nd floor back to the breaker
panel so that I can split the bedrooms into two circuits (yes I have
another AFCI standing by.)

I actually have a 40 ckt. 200A panel in my house, but it only has 20
full sized breaker spaces, so there's lots of half height breakers in
there (now.) If *I* were the guy doing the upgrade, I would have
spec'd a larger panel, but that's water under the bridge.

I'm digressing a bit, but sort of on the same topic, I have a
question regarding the wiring between my house and my garage. The
house's breaker panel has a 100A 2-pole breaker in it, which feeds
the subpanel in the garage. The other end of that wire connects to a
100A 2-pole breaker in the sub-panel. That just seems weird and
redundant to me. Is this common practice, and what is the reason for
it? Or did someone improvise "on the fly" and what would be the
right way to do it?

nate

RBM wrote:

It's fine to do that, but unless your bedrooms were wired on
dedicated circuits, maybe not practical given the issues with the
current crop of AFCI breakers, also if you buy a full sized panel,
such as a forty circuit 200 amp panel, there are no half size
breakers allowed. You only have provisions for half sized breakers
with reduced size panels


"N8N" wrote in message
oups.com...


Why not? I've added an AFCI to my house, along with a TVSS. I used
receptacles where GFCIs would be required. It takes minimal effort
"while you're in there" and while it may not be 100% compliant with
modern codes, it's closer than it was.

My advice would be to use full sized breakers exclusively, but get a
panel that allows half height breakers, that way there's room for
expansion in the future.

nate

On Feb 2, 4:25 pm, "RBM" rbm2(remove wrote:


It's an old house so they probably wouldn't be using any arc fault
or ground
fault breakers, which incidentally take the same space as any
other full
sized breaker

wrote in message

ps.com...





how many spaces would be
already filled by the items in our present fuse box and how
many extra
spaces would there be?

You'll use the same number of breakers as the number of fuses
you're
using
now.

True, but on a breaker box more space is better. What I can't
say for
sure is how many arc fault or ground fault breakers that they might
want to put in. Those take up a lot of space. More space is
beneficial because then you can put all your applicnaces on separate
breakers, and then your toaster oven and microwave on separate
breakers as well, etc.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -




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