On Fri, 3 Aug 2007 19:04:49 -0400, "gorehound"
wrote:


wrote in message
oups.com...
On Aug 2, 7:17 pm, "gorehound" wrote:
When did the NEC start "re-allowing" shared neutral without a double pole
breaker?

Thanks,
Shane

Shane,

It may not be required (and maybe never was) to have a handle tie but
it would be a nice idea to keep home-owners from tinkering and moving
the wire to the same phase since this would force the red and black to
be on separate phases as it is required and shoot why not it doesn't
cost any more to get 2 pole breakers over 2 single pole breakers.
Also a problem I have been running into recently it that shared
neutral circuits will not support an arc fault or a gfci breaker as is
now required if your city is up to date on the NEC. Is it worth it to
save a small buck?

Thanks and keep the good questions rollin' in,
Lucas
Lucas Electric, LLC


The reason I asked when they started allowing it again is because my
instructor said that code says you are supposed to use a double pole breaker
when sharing a neutral. I work for an electrician and we were wiring up a
portable gfci board for the local chili cook off and if we used separate
neutrals the pull through the carflex would have been more of a pain than it
was. I asked about the double pole and he said they said it was fine then
they said it wasn't then they said it was again. What makes me nervous about
the practice is when you are working on something and you shut the breaker
off you think ok I'm good to go. Now you go and pull down the light fixture
and start disconnecting it and get knocked on your ass because the neutral
is shared with the refrigerator circuit. If the 2 circuits were on a double
pull breaker the neutral wouldn't be carrying the load from the refrigerator
because both circuits would be dead.
Any thoughts?

That is true. In some cases having a double pole breaker is better,
like getting zapped by the neutral

Sometimes it is not better, like having the refrigerator go off when
you have a problem with the lights