Electrical – Buying a new home and had questions on electrical box

electrical-panel

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Can someone take a look at this breaker box and please let me know if there is anything I should be concerned with. Its a smaller house 1300 sq 3 bed 2 bath. Ac, new electric oven, gas water heater.

Best Answer

Generally I really like how this panel is set up. Neutrals are all landed on the bus on the left. Grounds are all landed on the bus on the right. It is a main panel, and neutral and grond buses are bonded by the wide black strap, but that's as it should be.

The red wire landed on the ground bus, I would have questions about that.

The capped wires on the left are no problem, those are simply unused circuits you might be able to put to use in the future, depending on where they go.

On the right are all 2-pole breakers, on the left 1-pole for 120V circuits.

The only thing that catches my eye is the red wires on the 120V circuits. Follow those back to the cable they enter the box with. They should be in a cable with a black and white wire. Now follow the black to its breaker. The red and black from the same cable should be on a 2-pole breaker. These are multi-wire branch circuits, and the red and black need to switch off together. This panel type is BR, which is a perfectly acceptable panel, and 2-pole breakers cost $9.