I recently participated in a 1 day inner city house “rehab” project. The wiring in this old house was downright scary. I needed to pull a new circuit to put a light in the basement stairwell, where the HO had already fallen a couple times in the dark. Since there were no other obvious circuits to tie into I ran a line back to the service panel, which looked like it had room for two more breakers based on the unused knockouts on the front. Pulled the cover only to find that the panel was already full (the panel cover did not match the box). So, I identified a lightly used circuit, and ran a wire from the breaker to a wire nut which connected the original wire and my new wire (all inside the panel).
Is this acceptable practice?
Replies
The code allows it if there is enough free space.
However, I have heard that a number of inspector's don't allow it.
um, no?
It's a quiz, right?
I'm not an electrician, but that sounds wrong. A wire nut in the
main service panel? What did you do with the ground and the
neutral conductors? I'm almost sure this violates code.
The ground and neutral conductors were properly run to the bus bar.
The answer is NEC [National Electrical Code] 373-8. This is a typical example of backward syntax which comes out of a committee. It starts out: Enclosures for...overcurrent devices [they can't say "circuit breakers"] shall not be used as junction boxes, ... raceways..." But then it contunues: ",,,unless adequate space is provided..."
In new work, splices [i.e. wirenuts] are a sign of poor planning. One time we had the panel in the middle with receptacles on the same circuit on either side. The white and green wires got lost in the shuffle but the hot wire went straight thru the panel to the nearest recept. box where it was spliced there. This avoid a dreaded wire nut in the panel.
Note: you could use a tan wire nut and hide it behind a bundle of other stuff.
On the neutral bar, only one wire is allowed per hole [usually]. The ground bar is a free for all.
~Peter