Electrical – Adding the Sense electricity monitor to the breaker box

circuit breakerelectrical-panel

I want to install the Sense electricity monitor to my breaker box to monitor my home's power usage. The instructions call for installation on a 240v breaker inside my electrical panel. Here is a link to the installation video as well as a direct link to the section regarding connecting to the breakers.

My breaker box:

My panel

Looks like I have a few options:

  1. I have one spot left for a breaker. I'm seeing results online about a 240v tandem breaker that would fit into a single 120V spot in my box. Does anyone have any suggestion as to what kind of breaker I need? Search results for tandem breaker run from $10 to $200 but that could be I'm looking at breakers for industrial uses. Looks like this doesn't work? Sense requires being on two different phases. Here is a video linked directly to the email that someone received from Sense.

  2. Add the legs for the Sense unit to the existing 240V breaker for the dryer. According to Sense, this is fine to do since the device uses less than 5 watts of power.

I've done a bit of wiring around the house but this is my first time working in the breaker box. I want to make sure I'm doing the best thing here.

Best Answer

Attach it to the dryer's breaker. This is fine because Sense is entirely contained inside a steel panel, so even if it entered the worst case scenario of the device drawing more current than its wires can handle, yet less than 30A, the panel enclosure would contain the damage.

Look at your dryer's breaker and see whether its labeling or instructions authorize use of two wires of dissimilar sizes. If not, you will need to get some #10 wire and pigtail it. When using wirenuts on #10 wire, tighten it with great fervor especially if it is solid wire. This would also be a great place to use mini-lugs, i.e. alumiconns.

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