Household Electrical System Questions

[Neto]

I need some help with repairing the electrical system at the house where we will eventually be moving. (We bought out the other heirs to my wife's dad's house.) I contacted an electrician company here in the area, but they told me that they do not do residential work anymore, and the person I talked with there (my wife's niece's husband, and possibly a part owner of that business) could not even think of anyone who will accept residential jobs.
I wanted someone to come out and look at the electric panel configuration, because
a.) the house was built in 1965 and many circuits are only 2-wire (no ground) [My folks built the year before, and EVERYTHING is grounded in that house],
b.) there was an electrical fire in the box at one time and there are what appear to me to be 'irregularities' in the wiring (two terminal boxes with wires going in and out, like massive junction boxes), and I have found circuits elsewhere in the house that are breaking off 110 from one side of a 220 circuit.
c.) a second panel is all double breakers (for 220), but some of these double breakers are supplying separate circuits. I wonder what would happen if one of these circuits experienced a short, and needed to throw the breaker. Would it be able to throw the switch, when it is connected to the other leg of the 220 service?

Questions (Yeah, I know, some have already slipped into the section above.):
1.) Neutral & Ground. In Brazil, which uses a simple 2-wire system, I was advised to add a separate terminal bar in the electric panel for the Neutral. Some people were just connecting the ground wire (on US grounded plugs) to the neutral terminal on the receptacle itself, but our maintenance guy said that while the neutral is grounded at the transformer, the two should be kept separate everywhere in the house - at the receptacles, in the electric supply panel and in the meter box. Here in our house the Neutral and Ground wires are all connected to the same terminal strip in the electric panel. Is that acceptable? If so, what is the difference between doing it there as oppose to connecting the ground and neutral at the receptacle?

2.) I experienced some 'shocking discoveries' at a light fixture box where there were 8 different cables going in. The actual light service wire was not connected to the rest of these wires in any way. There were 3 live wires in that 'junction box', one of which was a white wire. (THAT was shocking, in more ways than one.)

3.) How many receptacles can be on a single 15 or 20 amp breaker? (The area I'm dealing with now is a bedroom, with a hall receptacle, and the light in a small coat closet near the front entrance. Can I add in the service for the office as well? Should I install a completely separate circuit for electronic equipment, computer, etc? I did this in the house where we are currently living, but now there are other computers connected to a couple of other circuits.)

If anyone here is able to help me on this, I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future. So beware.... I have done a fair bit of electrical work in the past, but am not in any way an electrician. I DID attempt to get a professional in, but apparently no one wants to do non-commercial work, unless on new construction.

[Soloist]

I barely want to change an outlet myself… electricity makes me terribly nervous, just something odd about an accident being so exhilaratingly electrifying.
Being able to stick two metal pieces into an outlet to measure on my multimeter was quite an adventure.
I think I’m not going to be able to help you… i’ve got my own share of odd things. We have a house that’s fallen apart outside measured for 2 60 amp breakers. It’s still connected in the house, but there’s no power out there and I have no idea how the Power is supposed to get there. Makes the thought of tearing it down a little bit interesting. To top it off and it has a functional toilet, but it’s not connected to our septic tank and I don’t know where it goes.

[Ken]

Questions (Yeah, I know, some have already slipped into the section above.):
1.) Neutral & Ground. In Brazil, which uses a simple 2-wire system, I was advised to add a separate terminal bar in the electric panel for the Neutral. Some people were just connecting the ground wire (on US grounded plugs) to the neutral terminal on the receptacle itself, but our maintenance guy said that while the neutral is grounded at the transformer, the two should be kept separate everywhere in the house - at the receptacles, in the electric supply panel and in the meter box. Here in our house the Neutral and Ground wires are all connected to the same terminal strip in the electric panel. Is that acceptable? If so, what is the difference between doing it there as oppose to connecting the ground and neutral at the receptacle?

Neutral and Ground are connected to the same terminal strip (or connected to different terminal strips that are bonded together) in your MAIN panel or at the main breaker because they both flow back to the source which is the transformer on your electrical pole. That is standard and to code. They are kept separate in any subpanels that feed off the main panel. The purpose of the separate ground wire is to provide a low impedance path for electricity to flow back to the source in the event of a short circuit. So say you have a metal toaster or metal oven that has a short circuit. If there is no ground the entire toaster or oven can become live and shock you if you touch it because the current will flow into your hand, through your body, and then out your feet. If the appliance is grounded it will take the less resistant path through the ground wire and back to the source.

2.) I experienced some 'shocking discoveries' at a light fixture box where there were 8 different cables going in. The actual light service wire was not connected to the rest of these wires in any way. There were 3 live wires in that 'junction box', one of which was a white wire. (THAT was shocking, in more ways than one.)

Sounds like some remodeling was done that wasn't to code. Having a white wire that is a load wire isn't necessarily a code violation but it would typically be labeled as such or wrapped in black or red electrical tape in a junction box to distinguish it from the other neutral wires. The opposite is not true. All neutral wires must be white.

Generally you want to keep your plugs and lights on separate circuits. The safety reason for that is so that if you trip a breaker by overloading a plug, you don't also have the lights go out, leaving you in the dark.

3.) How many receptacles can be on a single 15 or 20 amp breaker? (The area I'm dealing with now is a bedroom, with a hall receptacle, and the light in a small coat closet near the front entrance. Can I add in the service for the office as well? Should I install a completely separate circuit for electronic equipment, computer, etc? I did this in the house where we are currently living, but now there are other computers connected to a couple of other circuits.)

The question isn't how many receptacles you can have on a single breaker. The question is how much current you are drawing from all the receptacles combined. If they are just a bunch of empty receptacles that you only use one at a time when you vacuum going room to room it doesn't matter how many you have. But if you have lots of different items plugged in that are all drawing current at the same time then it matters.

Typically the problem comes when you have a circuit loaded down with a background load (various electronics, etc.) and then you go to plug in something big to the same circuit like a table saw. That is when you can trip breakers. So if you have something with a lot of background load like a furnace it should be on a dedicated circuit.

Computers have a pretty low load. Things that heat (ovens, microwaves, dryers, space heaters, etc.) and things with big motors like a power saw tend to have the biggest load.

[Ken]

If it were me, I would take the time to make a circuit map and track down which circuit every device and outlet goes. Especially if your main panel is poorly labeled. There are tools that will make this job easier if you are working alone. You can use one of these circuit breaker finders: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Klein-Tools ... /308709729 which you plug into an outlet then go back to your main panel and then use the finder to sweep across all the circuit breakers one by one and it will light up and buzz when pointed at the correct circuit. Or you can just use trial and error and flip a breaker and see what gets turned off. That goes faster if you have a helper.

[JohnH]

If you don't have a helper, you can use an Eastern European circuit breaker finder:

[Neto]

If you don't have a helper, you can use an Eastern European circuit breaker finder:

My older brother was apparently intrigued with electrical sockets. I wasn't born yet when he did his first experiment - "plugging in" a finger nail clipper. That was way before breakers, so while I suppose it burned out a fuse in the fuse box, it also spit enough fire to burn a spot on the carpet. Perhaps that apartment didn't have proper rate fuses. (Fresno, CA, some time around 1953 or 54.) When we were building a new house (finished in 64, when I was 9 years old) he came back to the rental house where we were living at the time and said: "This is how you test fuses ---" and stuck a bent wire into the outlet. Yeah, it "tested" the fuse alright - burned it out. (The new house had breakers, and he apparently saw the electrician "test" a breaker that way.)

[Neto]

Questions (Yeah, I know, some have already slipped into the section above.):
1.) Neutral & Ground. In Brazil, which uses a simple 2-wire system, I was advised to add a separate terminal bar in the electric panel for the Neutral. Some people were just connecting the ground wire (on US grounded plugs) to the neutral terminal on the receptacle itself, but our maintenance guy said that while the neutral is grounded at the transformer, the two should be kept separate everywhere in the house - at the receptacles, in the electric supply panel and in the meter box. Here in our house the Neutral and Ground wires are all connected to the same terminal strip in the electric panel. Is that acceptable? If so, what is the difference between doing it there as oppose to connecting the ground and neutral at the receptacle?

Neutral and Ground are connected to the same terminal strip (or connected to different terminal strips that are bonded together) in your MAIN panel or at the main breaker because they both flow back to the source which is the transformer on your electrical pole. That is standard and to code. They are kept separate in any subpanels that feed off the main panel. The purpose of the separate ground wire is to provide a low impedance path for electricity to flow back to the source in the event of a short circuit. So say you have a metal toaster or metal oven that has a short circuit. If there is no ground the entire toaster or oven can become live and shock you if you touch it because the current will flow into your hand, through your body, and then out your feet. If the appliance is grounded it will take the less resistant path through the ground wire and back to the source.

2.) I experienced some 'shocking discoveries' at a light fixture box where there were 8 different cables going in. The actual light service wire was not connected to the rest of these wires in any way. There were 3 live wires in that 'junction box', one of which was a white wire. (THAT was shocking, in more ways than one.)

Sounds like some remodeling was done that wasn't to code. Having a white wire that is a load wire isn't necessarily a code violation but it would typically be labeled as such or wrapped in black or red electrical tape in a junction box to distinguish it from the other neutral wires. The opposite is not true. All neutral wires must be white.

Generally you want to keep your plugs and lights on separate circuits. The safety reason for that is so that if you trip a breaker by overloading a plug, you don't also have the lights go out, leaving you in the dark.

3.) How many receptacles can be on a single 15 or 20 amp breaker? (The area I'm dealing with now is a bedroom, with a hall receptacle, and the light in a small coat closet near the front entrance. Can I add in the service for the office as well? Should I install a completely separate circuit for electronic equipment, computer, etc? I did this in the house where we are currently living, but now there are other computers connected to a couple of other circuits.)

The question isn't how many receptacles you can have on a single breaker. The question is how much current you are drawing from all the receptacles combined. If they are just a bunch of empty receptacles that you only use one at a time when you vacuum going room to room it doesn't matter how many you have. But if you have lots of different items plugged in that are all drawing current at the same time then it matters.

Typically the problem comes when you have a circuit loaded down with a background load (various electronics, etc.) and then you go to plug in something big to the same circuit like a table saw. That is when you can trip breakers. So if you have something with a lot of background load like a furnace it should be on a dedicated circuit.

Computers have a pretty low load. Things that heat (ovens, microwaves, dryers, space heaters, etc.) and things with big motors like a power saw tend to have the biggest load.

First, thank you for your input. I have downloaded and read up on some parts of the electrical code, but Holmes County has no official or office that enforces anything to do with codes. There is no zoning, no building permits, nothing, unless the building is commercial, and even then, still no zoning.

First section (as you broke it down):
This house has a main service panel, and a 2nd expansion panel. Neither have separate terminal strips for Neutral and Ground. (Built in 1965, by a former Amish builder who started building houses in the late 40's.)
Technically, it seems to me that if the ground pole is connected to the neutral at the receptacle, the result would be the same - the over-voltage would still travel to the grounded neutral.

In Brazil, the electric service may be either 440 or 220. Everything is just two wires, no additional ground, or, you might say, no neutral. In more rural areas the service cable is a single wire, and you get your ground from, well, the ground - the earth. The cities where 440 comes into your house run only 220 voltage appliances, but is not like 220 V here, where 220 is two separate 110 lines. There the hot wire is straight 220 volts. Other cities have 220 come into the house, and then appliances are 110. For 220 3-wire appliances in cities with 110 service "at the receptacle", the ground is supplied by a grounding rod at the structure. On the mission center, since we ran many small American appliances, the houses were wired with American outlets, the later houses having the ground connector as well. As I said earlier, the neutral wire went directly out to the transformer that supplied power to that particular house. (There were typically 3 or maybe 4 houses on a single transformer. The wood shop and the auto maintenance shops each had their own, or maybe those two locations were serviced by the same one - I no longer remember for sure.)

Second section - re: separate breakers for receptacles and lights in a given room:
That is a great idea, but I don't think I have that 'luxury', unless I install another breaker box (which I am considering anyway), and run a whole bunch more wire. (Although I am assuming that one would put perhaps the lights for several rooms on a single circuit. The only room I've seen the light on a separate circuit is the service room, where the breaker box(es) are located, and generally that has been a single light that is wired into the service panel, sometimes ahead of the main breaker. I don't know if that is code compliant, but it sure is handy if you need to throw the main breaker, and still want to see anything in there.)

Yes, the house has been remodeled in the past, with two separate additions. There is also a third panel, in the far end of the house, which services parts of both additions. (I also mentioned that there had been a fire in one of the two primary breaker boxes - I do not know which.)

3rd section:
I do realize that the determining factor is load, not the number of receptacles - that's why I specified that I was talking about a bedroom, which typically had low loads. The house was originally all-electric, but I have removed all of the base-board heaters. Each bathroom will have a wall heater, but those each have their own circuit (I always convert heaters to 220). There are two wall heaters in the laundry area, one of which is actually in the entrance area from the garage. Other large appliances that use 220 off of dedicated breakers are the furnace, oven and the clothes dryer.

[Ken]

First section (as you broke it down):
This house has a main service panel, and a 2nd expansion panel. Neither have separate terminal strips for Neutral and Ground. (Built in 1965, by a former Amish builder who started building houses in the late 40's.)
Technically, it seems to me that if the ground pole is connected to the neutral at the receptacle, the result would be the same - the over-voltage would still travel to the grounded neutral.

This is not correct. If your grounds and neutral wires are co-mingled (bonded together) at a subpanel then in the event of a short circuit you can have live current passing back through a neutral wire on another circuit making it hot. But at this point all you could do to fix it is replace your subpanel with a modern one with modern breakers and that is a lot of work. But you have bigger issues anyway in that most of your circuits aren't even grounded in the first place.

In modern service panels the ground and neutral terminal strips are connected with a bonding screw (typically a green screw) that must be removed to keep the grounds and neutrals separate if that panel box is used for a subpanel rather than a main panel.

In Brazil, the electric service may be either 440 or 220. Everything is just two wires, no additional ground, or, you might say, no neutral. In more rural areas the service cable is a single wire, and you get your ground from, well, the ground - the earth. The cities where 440 comes into your house run only 220 voltage appliances, but is not like 220 V here, where 220 is two separate 110 lines. There the hot wire is straight 220 volts. Other cities have 220 come into the house, and then appliances are 110. For 220 3-wire appliances in cities with 110 service "at the receptacle", the ground is supplied by a grounding rod at the structure. On the mission center, since we ran many small American appliances, the houses were wired with American outlets, the later houses having the ground connector as well. As I said earlier, the neutral wire went directly out to the transformer that supplied power to that particular house. (There were typically 3 or maybe 4 houses on a single transformer. The wood shop and the auto maintenance shops each had their own, or maybe those two locations were serviced by the same one - I no longer remember for sure.)

Yes, 220 (or 240) volts in the US is different from the rest of the world. That is basically a legacy of the US being the first country to electrify back when both DC and AC currents were used and 110 volt DC was thought to be the best voltage for incandescent lighting which was the main use of electricity when electrical power first came out.

With AC power, 220 voltage is actually more efficient. Which is why most countries that electrified after AC current became standard use 220 volt systems (most of Europe, Asia, and South America). But it would be too enormously costly to convert all of North America to 220 volt so we are stuck with 110 volt systems because that is what Thomas Edison picked way back in 1880 when he built the first electrical utility in NYC producing 110 volt DC power.

220 volt in the US is actually different. It is two separate 110 volt lines that are out of phase (the positive and negative alternating cycles of current are 120 degrees out of phase) so the current produced can be added together like shown in the diagram below where the difference between the two phases add together to get to 220 volts (the peak distance between the red and blue lines).



Whereas what you had in Brazil was a single phase 220 volt system like the 240 volt single phase current in this diagram

I do realize that the determining factor is load, not the number of receptacles - that's why I specified that I was talking about a bedroom, which typically had low loads. The house was originally all-electric, but I have removed all of the base-board heaters. Each bathroom will have a wall heater, but those each have their own circuit (I always convert heaters to 220). There are two wall heaters in the laundry area, one of which is actually in the entrance area from the garage. Other large appliances that use 220 off of dedicated breakers are the furnace, oven and the clothes dryer.

If it is a bedroom and all you have plugged in is computers and floor or table lights then you are probably fine. Especially today when most lights are LED.

[Neto]

First section (as you broke it down):
This house has a main service panel, and a 2nd expansion panel. Neither have separate terminal strips for Neutral and Ground. (Built in 1965, by a former Amish builder who started building houses in the late 40's.)
Technically, it seems to me that if the ground pole is connected to the neutral at the receptacle, the result would be the same - the over-voltage would still travel to the grounded neutral.

This is not correct. If your grounds and neutral wires are co-mingled (bonded together) at a subpanel then in the event of a short circuit you can have live current passing back through a neutral wire on another circuit making it hot. But at this point all you could do to fix it is replace your subpanel with a modern one with modern breakers and that is a lot of work. But you have bigger issues anyway in that most of your circuits aren't even grounded in the first place.

In modern service panels the ground and neutral terminal strips are connected with a bonding screw (typically a green screw) that must be removed to keep the grounds and neutrals separate if that panel box is used for a subpanel rather than a main panel.

In Brazil, the electric service may be either 440 or 220. Everything is just two wires, no additional ground, or, you might say, no neutral. In more rural areas the service cable is a single wire, and you get your ground from, well, the ground - the earth. The cities where 440 comes into your house run only 220 voltage appliances, but is not like 220 V here, where 220 is two separate 110 lines. There the hot wire is straight 220 volts. Other cities have 220 come into the house, and then appliances are 110. For 220 3-wire appliances in cities with 110 service "at the receptacle", the ground is supplied by a grounding rod at the structure. On the mission center, since we ran many small American appliances, the houses were wired with American outlets, the later houses having the ground connector as well. As I said earlier, the neutral wire went directly out to the transformer that supplied power to that particular house. (There were typically 3 or maybe 4 houses on a single transformer. The wood shop and the auto maintenance shops each had their own, or maybe those two locations were serviced by the same one - I no longer remember for sure.)

Yes, 220 (or 240) volts in the US is different from the rest of the world. That is basically a legacy of the US being the first country to electrify back when both DC and AC currents were used and 110 volt DC was thought to be the best voltage for incandescent lighting which was the main use of electricity when electrical power first came out.

With AC power, 220 voltage is actually more efficient. Which is why most countries that electrified after AC current became standard use 220 volt systems (most of Europe, Asia, and South America). But it would be too enormously costly to convert all of North America to 220 volt so we are stuck with 110 volt systems because that is what Thomas Edison picked way back in 1880 when he built the first electrical utility in NYC producing 110 volt DC power.

220 volt in the US is actually different. It is two separate 110 volt lines that are out of phase (the positive and negative alternating cycles of current are 120 degrees out of phase) so the current produced can be added together like shown in the diagram below where the difference between the two phases add together to get to 220 volts (the peak distance between the red and blue lines).



Whereas what you had in Brazil was a single phase 220 volt system like the 240 volt single phase current in this diagram

I do realize that the determining factor is load, not the number of receptacles - that's why I specified that I was talking about a bedroom, which typically had low loads. The house was originally all-electric, but I have removed all of the base-board heaters. Each bathroom will have a wall heater, but those each have their own circuit (I always convert heaters to 220). There are two wall heaters in the laundry area, one of which is actually in the entrance area from the garage. Other large appliances that use 220 off of dedicated breakers are the furnace, oven and the clothes dryer.

If it is a bedroom and all you have plugged in is computers and floor or table lights then you are probably fine. Especially today when most lights are LED.

Thanks, Ken.
Brazil is really a mess, because some cities are 440 in, using 220 appliances, and other cities are 220 in, using 110 appliances. I don't think it even goes by entire states, but that's possible. We never lived in more than a single city in any Brazilian state.

I don't know if the two legs of 440 in Brazil is "off phase" as you describe for 220 here in the US - maybe you encountered that type of thing in Chile, and know if it is, or not.

I have been working on replacing all of the 12 gauge wires that have no ground. At some point, someone had added a ground to some of the receptacles, but just by drilling a small hole through the floor close to the baseboard, and running the green wire up the wall to the receptacle. I don't know why it wasn't wired with a ground to start with, because our house in Oklahoma was built the year before this one, and it has grounding everywhere. (Maybe because a real electrician did the wiring..... This is Holmes County, after all. )

The house we owned in Brazil only had 4 circuits for the entire house when we bought it, so I pulled out the USA made breaker box and put in a Brazilian one. Since it didn't have separate terminal blocks for the Neutral and Ground, I bought a separate terminal block and fastened it inside the box, using a non-conductive material to keep it from having any contact with the box itself. This was for the Neutral, and that block was connected only to the Neutral terminal in the transformer box out between our house and the next house. I don't know for sure, but the man who told me to do it that way may have been an electrical engineer. He was the one responsible for a complete re-wire of the main office building at our executive center (in Brasilia). We had just gotten out of Portuguese language school, and I was working in the maintenance department there at that time, so I saw the mess that was the main electrical service panel. First, it was located under a stairway, and most of the wires didn't go through any holes in the box. Wires just streamed into the front of the (open) box from all directions. That mess makes this mess look like child's play.

Anyway, so from what I understand of what you've explained to me, apparently the transformer box (a small shed out by the road, actually) on the mission center in Brazil must have replaced the function of the main service panel in the typical home here in the States.

[Ken]

Thanks, Ken.
Brazil is really a mess, because some cities are 440 in, using 220 appliances, and other cities are 220 in, using 110 appliances. I don't think it even goes by entire states, but that's possible. We never lived in more than a single city in any Brazilian state.

I don't know if the two legs of 440 in Brazil is "off phase" as you describe for 220 here in the US - maybe you encountered that type of thing in Chile, and know if it is, or not.

I have been working on replacing all of the 12 gauge wires that have no ground. At some point, someone had added a ground to some of the receptacles, but just by drilling a small hole through the floor close to the baseboard, and running the green wire up the wall to the receptacle. I don't know why it wasn't wired with a ground to start with, because our house in Oklahoma was built the year before this one, and it has grounding everywhere. (Maybe because a real electrician did the wiring..... This is Holmes County, after all. )

The house we owned in Brazil only had 4 circuits for the entire house when we bought it, so I pulled out the USA made breaker box and put in a Brazilian one. Since it didn't have separate terminal blocks for the Neutral and Ground, I bought a separate terminal block and fastened it inside the box, using a non-conductive material to keep it from having any contact with the box itself. This was for the Neutral, and that block was connected only to the Neutral terminal in the transformer box out between our house and the next house. I don't know for sure, but the man who told me to do it that way may have been an electrical engineer. He was the one responsible for a complete re-wire of the main office building at our executive center (in Brasilia). We had just gotten out of Portuguese language school, and I was working in the maintenance department there at that time, so I saw the mess that was the main electrical service panel. First, it was located under a stairway, and most of the wires didn't go through any holes in the box. Wires just streamed into the front of the (open) box from all directions. That mess makes this mess look like child's play.

Anyway, so from what I understand of what you've explained to me, apparently the transformer box (a small shed out by the road, actually) on the mission center in Brazil must have replaced the function of the main service panel in the typical home here in the States.

Yeah, I mean I have no idea about Brazil, let alone remote rural Brazil. I saw some crazy stuff in Guatemala. Chile is 220 volt 50 Hz service same as Europe and Australia. I've only seen professionally installed stuff there as my wife's family lives in an affluent part of Santiago and it all looks the same as you would see in Germany. Guatemala and I think all of Central America follows the US system of 110 volt 60 Hz service with the same type of plugs as used in the US.

Here in the US you would normally have 2-phase service coming in from the transformer on the utility pole on the street, passing through your meter and into your main service panel. Your main service will be two hot leads typically one red and one black that are out of phase and a white neutral lead going back to the transformer source. These three leads connect to your main breaker that will shut off all power downstream of that point.

All your 110 volt circuits will run off either the black or red lead and service panels are designed so that as you fill them with single breakers top to bottom it alternates red and black so that you distribute your household load evenly across both service leads. And then any 220 volt circuits use a double space breaker and so connect to both the red and black lead. All the white neutral wires all come back to the bus bar that connects to the neutral wire coming in from the street. As do all of your ground wires. And then you have the neutral service lead grounded by going into the actual ground for safety at the meter which is also to provide a path to ground if your building is struck by lightning.

Grounds and neutrals need to stay separate except where they are bonded together at the main service panel so that if you have a short in one circuit the hot ground doesn't feed electricity back up any of the other neutral wires making them hot.