Breaker Question

[Robert Sole]

I inspected a home yesterday the had a 60 amp breaker in the distribution panel for the air conditioners. This fed another breaker panel near the condensing units that had one 35 amp breaker and one 45 amp breaker (the max breaker sizes for the units) installed for the condensing units.

Does this meet the requirements or should I recommend having an electrician inspect it?

[Ralph Brady]

It should be OK. The chance of both breakers using the maximum at the same time is slim.

[Robert Sole]

Thanks for the reply. I didn't address it with the buyer but wanted to make sure I was looking at it correctly.

[Jeffrey R. Pope]

Typically, the condensers are fed by individual circuits, but that's not necessarily required. I would have been more concerned with the minimum circuit ampacity rating for each unit.

[John E. Gibson, #2]

Is the wiring the right size for the breakers. The 60 amp would need a #4 wire coming out of it and the 35 amp breaker would need a #8 wire, and the 45 amp breaker will need a #6 or bigger in all three cases.

John

[Marc Benz]

Originally Posted by John E. Gibson, #2

Is the wiring the right size for the breakers. The 60 amp would need a #4 wire coming out of it and the 35 amp breaker would need a #8 wire, and the 45 amp breaker will need a #6 or bigger in all three cases.

John

It may be ligit or not depending on which type of conductor it used and also in the A/C compressor motours they have diffrent rating to determed the correct size conductor per manufacter nameplate it will listed max fuse or circuit breaker listing on it and also min running or running amp list.

The NEC code cover this pretty well it will be in Art 430 and 440

Most electricians will wired min { running amps } and max ocpd listed

Merci,Marc

[GARY R. EVANS]

The breaker for air conditioners and motor loads do not need to match the wire size. For example the a/c nameplate reads max. breaker size 40amps and the min. wire size #10. The breaker is for short circuit protection. a/c compressors and motors have internal protection or in some cases motor starters that protect the wire. The wire size for an a/c is 125% of the full load amps or current (FLA or FLC) the breaker size is 175% of the FLA or FLC.