Electrical help. Post questions

This thread is for people who know electrical work from head to toe. No guessing and no wrong answers!

I have 9 recepatcles 4 hooked up to one 20 amp breaker, and the other five hooked up to another 20 amp breaker. They are all 15 Amp receptacles. Ran with 10 awg I know it's big wire for 15 amp. My question is can I swith the receptacles to 30 Amp and switch the breakers to 30 amp 2pole?

Thanks guys!

Frosty

Yeah - the gauge wire is OK for 30a.

2-pole? You want 240v?

Only 120v 30a receptacles will be NEMA 6-30R / 10-30R and 14-30R

You could take one of those feeds, go to the FIRST outlet and replace receptacle with a subpanel and at the main panel pull the neutral mark it with black tape and use a 30a double pole breaker to feed 240v to sub. Now you pop a 20 a single in the sub and feed the remainder of that chain of receptacles at 120v. Add another breaker in the sub to feed additional loads.

Note this is not to code.

Edit: nevermind, no neutral to feed sub.

Edit. Bad idea no neutral.

Simply asked:
Is the 10 awg wire have a:
Black
white
ground/bare
red
wires in it? If it is 10/3 w/ground then you can do it without any problem...
Only two wires plus ground then you are limited... to single phase single pole, without cheating the code book....

EDIT:
As long as you do not want any "110 vac" and you only want straight 220 vac then
10/2 is fine... do you want to also use 110, or is your application only 220?

Whatever you do, don't use bare copper ground as a neutral.

So im confused about the 2 pole. Is there a single pole 30amp breaker? It dosent matter if it's 120 or 240. I don't want to make it more complicated with a sub panel. I was just thinking 240 because running a thousand W on a 120 is around 8.3-8.4 A and it would be cut in half with 240. But I'm using 10/2 black white ground. So I can just swap receptacles and put a 30 amp breaker? And I'll be good?

Thanks for the replys

Send a pic of that 10-2. You sure its not aluminum?

If it is 10-2 copper on the whole circuit then it will handle the 30 amps. Receptacles are another matter.

If the house is older like 1950's then be wary of aluminum wire. Totally different animal and can't be junctioned with copper unless using properly rated splices.

Double pole breakers are for 240 & single for 120.

Asking again:
Are you planning on just 220 for your lights, and then get your 110 for your fans the 10/2 would be fine, black = 110//white = 110// ground straight 220, if you color that white like red then it wont be confusion for the next guy...
If you need 110 and 220 and you only have 10/2 then I would advise against... just either use 110 or 220 with the 10/2...
Good Luck!

Okay thanks sand. It is deff copper wire for sure. No red wire. And I wasent sure if they had a single pole 30a breaker. 240 V seem to be complicated for some reason. So I'll just switch out the 15A receptacles with 30A and just change the 20A breKers to 30. Seem right This electrical work can get confusing and dangerous. so you can never be too sure. Thanks again guys

Frostygreen said:

So im confused about the 2 pole. Is there a single pole 30amp breaker? It dosent matter if it's 120 or 240. I don't want to make it more complicated with a sub panel. I was just thinking 240 because running a thousand W on a 120 is around 8.3-8.4 A and it would be cut in half with 240. But I'm using 10/2 black white ground. So I can just swap receptacles and put a 30 amp breaker? And I'll be good?

Thanks for the replys

Click to expand...

You say you have wired two separate 120 volts branch circuits on 20 amps breakers. Are the 20 amps circuit breakers for those two 120 volts circuits mounted adjacent to each other in the circuit breaker panel and are not the tandem style breakers sharing the same pole? Do you have access to a voltmeter to verify that the 20 amps breakers are on separate poles by measuring the voltage between the two circuit breakers? How many 1000 watts ballasts do you plan to run? Are you planning to run an air conditioner? If so, will it be more than 5000 BTUs? Any other high amperage devices you will be running like a heater or dehumidifier? If so, what are their wattage?

They are on separate breakers on the same side of the panel. I do not think it matters what side they are on. And if they are on seperate breakers they would not be on the same pole. And yes maybe 2 or 3 1000s with filter fAn etc

Frostygreen said:

They are on separate breakers on the same side of the panel. I do not think it matters what side they are on. And if they are on seperate breakers they would not be on the same pole. And yes maybe 2 or 3 1000s with filter fAn etc

Click to expand...

After giving it some more thought, perhaps the best way would be to keep one of the 20 amps 120 volts branch circuit wired as it is now, and convert the other branch circuit to a 20 amps 240 volts circuit, by removing that white wire from the neutral bar in the main panel and connecting that white wire to a double pole 20 amp breaker re-identifying that white wire as a black (or red) wire, along with swapping the receptacles in that circuit to 20 amp 240 volts receptacles. However, the point I was going to make earlier if you wanted to keep everything on 120 volts circuits, was that I was hoping you were going to run only two 1000 watts ballasts (one ballast to each 120 volts branch circuit that are on separate poles). Already I see you are confused about poles and I'm starting to get apprehensive about giving out any advice in this forum as it may only contribute to further confuse people. But what I was going to say is that in some cases, depending on what other load demands will be placed on the circuits, there would no advantage to running the two ballasts on 240 volts as the total current on the main breaker panel will remain the same when properly balanced (divided) between L1 and L2. I am not a Licensed Electrician, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.