here are 10 common mistakes diy-ers make
in their electrical panels or circuit
breaker boxes now we will be covering a
fix for each of these that I can walk
you through and keep in mind these are a
no particular order so let's kick it off
with our first one and that is the
frustrating experience of opening up
your panel only to find this there's
nothing here sometimes there's no
description at all other times it's an
outdated description and other times
you're just wondering how the heck am I
supposed to read that this is gibberish
that doesn't make any sense illegible
handwriting is kind of a a bad thing
when it comes to electricity so this can
be a real problem now this is a good
time to remind you that you should
always test your receptacles or your
switches or whatever it is you're
working on to make sure that there is no
current running to them even if you
think you've got it turned off here in
the electrical panel fortunately this is
an easy one to fix make sure to take the
time to write these in legibly if you
need to you can buy some labels and I'll
put some links in the description below
now I have a circuit breaker Finder
right here that works really well this
is the kind of thing where you basically
you plug this end in to an outlet for
example and then it even comes with an
adapter for working with light bulbs and
then you can use this end to run over
each of the circuit breakers and it'll
tell you which one is assigned to that
particular Outlet or receptacle or light
switch it's really handy but there's a
hundred easier ways to do it as well you
can just turn on a loud radio that's
plugged in you can have someone yell you
can do the cell phone walkie-talkie
thing whatever you need to do but make
sure you get these labeled appropriately
mistake number two is overloading your
circuit breaker panel now you can see on
this particular panel this thing is
pretty chock full we have our entire
house running on this including the
basement which was unfinished when we
moved in so this really can't handle any
more than it's got right here the more
important thing is that you know how
many amps you can handle in this panel
and that you are only using up to about
80 percent of that amperage so for
example this is a 150 amp panel so I
want to make sure that I'm not using
more than 120 amps of the juice that
this can provide at any given time it
doesn't mean that I have to keep this to
120 or even 150 amps worth of circuit
breakers when I add all these up it's
going to be more than that and that's
okay it's more about the usage within
your home now the more you stack in here
especially if you're using tandems like
this where I'm getting 30 plus 30 you
know that kind of thing can add up
pretty quickly and the more of those you
have the more likely it is that you'll
be able to use those and overload your
panel so you want to be careful to make
sure that you're not putting too much in
there and if you need to create a
separate sub panel I'll have a whole
video coming out about that next week
mistake number three on our list is not
protecting the sheathing of the wires on
the inside and letting them rub up
against The Knockouts inside the panel
now I'm going to take this cover off
I've got all the screws but one off I'm
going to support the panel with one hand
while I remove this last screw to make
sure it doesn't slip or fall into the
panel itself so with that being
supported I can now pull that out and
put it aside
you can see up here we've got a pretty
good job up here we've got our push and
plastic connectors or bushings here
we've got everything here coming in as
it should there are no wires going
directly into the actual panel Knockouts
without being supported or protected by
a bushing or a connector here and that's
exactly what we want when you don't have
that that could start to serrate the
edges of these and cause a short or a
fault now this is a great time as we
remove the panel cover here for you to
pause for a second and think am I ready
to do this is this something that I'm
qualified and trained to do do I have
confidence in what I'm doing or is this
a little bit of guesswork if there's
guesswork if you're unsure if you don't
have that confidence that you know
you're doing it right and you've done
your research then maybe call an
electrician and get them to help you
there is some serious voltage and
amperage running through here that you
want to treat with respect mistake
number four is having an imbalance
between your circuit breaker amperage
and your wire gauge if you look up to
top here we'll see that we've got
multiple colors of wires coming in we've
got these white sheathed Romex here and
then we've also got some yellows as well
now the white typically indicates a 14
gauge wire remember with gauges the
higher the number the thinner the wire
is and over here these yellows represent
a 12 gauge wire so it's a little bit
thicker now that makes a big difference
on what they're connected to what we
don't want to do is allow a thinner
gauge wire to have an amperage of
circuit breaker that exceeds its
capacity generally speaking 15 amp
circuits should use at least a 14 gauge
wire and it could be thicker that's okay
we don't want it to be thinner and then
these 20 amps will use a 12 gauge wire
now the issue you might run into is
let's say you have a 20 or a 30 amp
circuit breaker in here and you've got
14 gauge wire that's actually capable of
producing a lot more electricity pushing
A Lot More Voltage essentially or
amperage really Through the Wire than a
14 gauge wire is designed to handle and
what could happen is that heats up and
that creates again a potential for fault
or issues fire different things like
that so we don't want that overheating
to occur so we want to make sure that
you match up the gauge of wire with the
amperage of each circuit number five on
our list is improper grounding and
there's several ways that I've seen this
happen I just saw a box the other day
actually where someone actually snipped
the main ground coming in from the
source and they just cut it right here
nothing in the whole panel was grounded
at all have no idea honestly why they
would do that or what they thought they
were trying to accomplish here but that
is a huge mistake another one that I've
seen before is when they take a bunch of
these different ground wires here and
then they twist them all together and
then they run one pigtail down into the
ground bus bar that's also not okay it
can be okay depending on the area for
you to use a wire nut there and you can
match a bunch of them up there put a
wire nut with a pigtail going off that's
actually all right in most areas but
again check with your local code on that
what's not not okay is just to Twist
them together assume they're going to
have good enough contact and then run a
pigtail off of that so make sure that
everything is properly grounded and you
can easily tell for example in mine if I
move these wires out of the way over
here you can see that the main ground
comes in right here and then it's
attached to the bus bar and then this
bus bar is attached to the other ground
bus bar by the panel itself you don't
need to have a wire running from here
over to here for grounding or making
that connection with the ground it's
actually the metal panel that's making
that connection there and that's
perfectly okay number six on our list is
doubling up on your wiring within the
same hole on the bus bar I found an
example of that here on this neutral
right down here at the end I've got two
neutrals going into the exact same hole
which is kind of silly because there are
plenty of available neutral holes on
this bus bar there's no good reason to
do that other than maybe a bit of
laziness or a misunderstanding there
when you have two you're increasing the
likelihood of a poor connection and that
some something that again could shake
loose over time or just not have a tight
connection and that could cause arcing
sparking other issues like that I've got
an issue with it right there and then on
my ground bar it's all over the place
there's Bunches of them and those are
pretty easy fixes especially if you have
a lot of open holes in your bus bar for
neutrals or for grounds number seven on
our list is using the improper sheathing
coloring for your wires now there's
pretty simple National Electric Code
about this here in the United States and
it basically says that your neutrals
have to be white or gray and that your
ground has to be green or bare wire and
so it doesn't really specify much about
the black for example for your hot or
the red for your secondary hot but that
is that well understood color set for
anything electrical in these panels so
what I noticed in my panel right here
the electrician who wired this house up
before we bought this wired up a neutral
as a secondary hot or what appears to be
a neutral now that would be okay if we
made one little will change to this so
what we need to do is just take some
electrical tape that's red and use that
to wrap around and indicate that that is
not in fact neutral but is a secondary
hot and there we go now that lets
anybody who's working on this in the
future know that this is a secondary hot
not a neutral line you can kind of
figure that out if you're looking at it
but let's not make it any more difficult
than it needs to be number eight on our
list is what are called double tapped
circuit breakers now this is illegal or
against code at least in some areas and
then in other circumstances and
situations it's actually totally okay to
do so you have to know when you can use
this and when you cannot now you can see
for example if I were to feed two
different Hots or two different lines
into this one circuit breaker that may
or may not be against code it depends on
how this one was designed you can see on
this Eaton circuit breaker for example
this 20 amp really is designed just for
one wire to be fed in if you look at the
specs on the side it shows a 14 to 10
gauge an eight gauge or even a six to
four gauge and it has all the specs for
that that's okay but it doesn't say
anything about applying two different
wires to the same circuit breaker that's
because it's not up to manufacturer's
specs to land two different wires into
this thing however if you look at the
Square D home line series for example
these typically tend to allow for that
if we take a look on the side here you
can see there's a very clear
illustration of mounting one wire in or
two wires so we can follow those
guidelines and again if you flip over to
the side and see the lug here it's got
two plates where you can clearly receive
two different wires based on the
curvature of those plates now double
tapping is kind of a frown upon practice
mostly because it means you've got two
home runs or two lines running off the
same circuit breaker it makes it a
little bit trickier sometimes to
troubleshoot especially if those two
areas of the home or the business are
not right next to each other that can be
problematic to troubleshoot as well
number nine on our list is missing
filler plates you're your circuit
breaker panel cover has these different
Knockouts for different circuit breakers
you want to make sure to only knock out
those that are filled with a circuit
breaker what can happen is sometimes
some changes are made in the home maybe
some circuits are rewired to a sub panel
and then you have these open slots here
or perhaps you got a little aggressive
and you knocked out too many of those
Knockouts and you have more open holes
than you have circuit breakers to fill
in that case that's actually totally
against code again because someone could
just reach their fingers in there and
put their fingers where they're not
supposed to it can be dangerous and it's
an easy fix you can buy filler blanks
right from the store you sell these at
Home Depot and Lowe's you can buy them
on Amazon these are pretty easy so get
these filler plates put one of those in
there make sure you don't have any open
holes in your circuit breaker panel now
we're almost on our last one but I do
want to remind you that I will have a
video coming out about how to install a
new sub panel I'm putting one in my
garage for example and I'll walk you
through step by step all of that you can
check that out using the link at the end
of the video or in the description below
and as always every product that I show
in this video you can check out that
little shopping bag in the lower left
corner to see those from Home Depot or
Lowe's or other stores like that or you
can check out the links in the
description below now on to number 10
which is not torquing your screws down
to the right tension all of the lugs or
screws inside this panel have a specific
tension that they need to be torqued
down to and if you look for example on
our different circuit breakers just like
we saw earlier it shows how much
pressure these need to have in fact
we've got a breakdown right here for
example that this says 36 inch pounds or
4 newton meters so that same thing
applies to the lugs on here but then
there are different measurements or
ratings for our bigger lugs over here
and those are typically located on the
inside of the panel so you want to make
sure to do that up to code and make sure
you're following those specifications
most people don't have something like
this this is a tour Fork screwdriver and
it allows you there's different ways to
adjust these banks on the brand and then
when it maxes out it's no longer going
to apply that tension so I keep turning
into turning and then it'll get to that
in this case it's set to 50 inch pounds
of torque and then when it's done it's
not going to turn anymore so I know I've
got it just at the right spot and in a
lot of companies nowadays they're
actually going around and they're
actually once a year just testing all of
the screws and lugs to make sure that
they're tightened the appropriate amount
and this is a smart thing to do in your
house as well now I will say I think
most of the time diy-ers especially like
myself we're not necessarily going
around and saying okay I've got to get
it right to 36 inch pounds but believe
it or not these only cost about 40 bucks
I know it's not super cheap but to make
sure that you're getting it just right I
think it's a good little investment and
again I'll put links to that in the
description below so that you can make
sure that you're getting all of these
set to just the right torque now just
one last little bonus issue that I want
to throw out there here's an example of
a beautifully wired and and beautifully
patterned panel I love looking at
something like this to me it's a form of
art it's done well it's easy to
recognize it's easy to trace the lines
and it's easy to add on more here's an
example of what we want to avoid a
tangled Rat's Nest like this can be
really difficult to find out what's what
and it makes it easy to accidentally
touch wires when you don't mean to or to
remove the wrong one because it's hard
to trace so the more organization you
have the more of a pattern that you
apply to your layout inside your panel
the better off you'll be in the future
as well as anyone working after you
while we're on the topic of wiring you
might enjoy this video right here it
shows six mistakes diy-ers make when
wiring outlets and some of these are
pretty surprising I was going to say
shocking I restrain myself yeah I can do
that I'm Nils with learn to DIY thanks
for watching