double pole breaker for 120v circuit without shared neutral

[pinkchry]

I just had a panel/service upgrade (in SF Bay Area) and in the process of relabelling the breakers, I noticed that the circuits to breaker mapping has changed.

For e.g. the dishwasher used to be on the same 20amp double pole circuit as the kitchen lights and now it's on its own single pole 20amp circuit. Another example is that the family room and the living room were on separate breakers before but they are now on the two legs of the sample double pole 20amp breaker.

There are a couple of 20amp double pole breakers that have only black wires attached. My uninformed assumption is that the electrician switched the wires when doing the panel upgrade. As far as I know I don't have a shared neutral. I've replaced most outlets and switches and have only turned off one breaker and never noticed any live neutrals when using my tester.

Is this something that is an artifact of the way the old house was wired. Should I get the electrician to change these to single pole breakers?

Picture of the old/new panels here -> https://imgur.com/a/RkdT0fA

Thanks!

 

[Max]

A double pole breaker doesn’t break neutral. Instead it breaks two hots to a 240V appliance or receptacle.

Neutrals are always “live” in the sense that they are not fed from a breaker. Neutral is the return path for 120V current. At a single place in your house - generally the main panel but it could be a service entrance - neutral and ground are connected together.

I am not a NEC expert, but perhaps one of them will chime in for sure. But I think (not sure) that the electrician did you a favor as the DW should be on a seperate breaker.

Max

 

[Flail]

I can only guess from your picture, but if the outlets in fact previously shared a neutral, the electrician put them on double breakers as a safety measure. The safety is: with a shared neutral, if one breaker is off, the neutral can still have current on it from the other breaker. The alternative to double breakers is to put tie-bars between single breakers that share a neutral. Problem here is they get removed or fall out when work gets done and don’t get replaced.

Edit: Max has fleet fingers.

 

[sberry]

A double can supply 2 circuits, doesn't have to share a neutral,,, or more correctly grounded conductors. It is really only a neutral if it is shared.
If each circuit has its own "neutral" or grounded conductor then the double pole simply shuts off both circuits. The only benifit of a single pole is that you can shut circuits off individually.

 

[theoldwizard1]

A double can supply 2 circuits, doesn't have to share a neutral,,, or more correctly grounded conductors. It is really only a neutral if it is shared.
If each circuit has its own "neutral" or grounded conductor then the double pole simply shuts off both circuits. The only benifit of a single pole is that you can shut circuits off individually.

Unusual. Maybe the sparky ran out of single pole breakers ? I would request that they be changed.

 

[alfredeneuman]

A double pole breaker doesn’t break neutral. Max

What about this one?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052MEDAE/?tag=atomicindus08-20

They're required for fuel dispensers

 

[mm08822]

"never" and "always" can be very troublesome words.