frank-in-toronto wrote:

"Charles Bishop" wrote in message
...
I was working in the kitchen, replacing the outlets near the sink with
GFCIs. When I went out to turn the breaker off, I found out that the
breaker that turned off the five outlets was two 20A breakers that had
been connected in the panel as if they were a 20A 240 V circuit. When I
disconnected the two of them, I found that one breaker controled the
outlets on the left hand side of the sink (2 outlets on the counter, one
for the refigerator and one for the microwave) while the other breaker
controlled 3 outlets on the right side of the sink.

What's the reason for connecting the two breakers together in the breaker
box? If there is a short in one of the outlets on the right hand side,
will both breakers together trip as easily as the one would by itself?
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 20:44:09 -0500, "RBM" rmottola1(remove
wrote:

It is code when both circuits are fed from a three wire cable, sharing the
neutral
it sounds to me as if code is broken here. in ontario the fridge
needs to be on it's own circuit. and outlets beside the kitchen sink
have a separate breaker for top and bottom. these breakers ONLY
control/feed that outlet. maybe this is different elsewhere.

Canadian code is different in this area than the USA. In the US, 20 amp
circuits in the kitchen, on GFCI, is preferred, in Canada two 15 amp
circuits per outlet is preferred. That is because electrical appliances
are more common up north, than in the US of A.