electrical
I'm doing some research ahead of a tankless water heater installation, and wanted to check which breaker slots will take tandem breakers. (I won't be doing the install myself).
I think it's telling me that every slot will take a tandem breaker. However the diagram doesn't match the real life layout (there's actually 10 slots per side), and the text is a little cryptic & confusing.
Can anyone help decipher the text & diagrams to confirm where tandem breakers can be installed?
It sounds like you may be mistaken as to how this is wired, or that perhaps I'm just not understanding your explanation. As others have mentioned, it's not possible to get 240 volts from a single pole in a 120/240V split phase system. Each tandem breaker provides 2 120 V circuits, this is true. However, if you measure between the terminals on a single tandem breaker, you'll get 0 volts. This is because the terminals are both powered from the same leg, and so are at the same voltage potential. If you measure from a terminal on the top tandem breaker to a terminal on the bottom one, then you'll measure 240 volts. This is because each breaker is connected to a different leg, which are each one half of a 240 volt circuit.
With all that said. For this setup to work, one appliance would have to be connected to both breaker. Something like this...
Notice that each appliance circuit has one wire connected to each of the tandem breakers. In this situation, you'd need a device like Speedy Petey shows.
Which ties the breaker handles together, to provide common trip characteristics.
Notice how the inner handles are tied together, and that the outer handles are also tied to each other. This way if either trip (or are turned off by the user), the entire circuit is shut off.
If this is wired the way you've explained, where the dryer is connected to the top tandem and the heater is connected to the bottom. Then there's some magic going on in those breakers.
There can only be one point in the system where neutral and ground wires are joined, and this is usually in the main panel. Therefore, you must lift the bond from the generator, or disconnect the ground wire from the generator to the transfer switch.
If you lift the bond on the generator, you can run both ground and an insulated neutral back to the transfer switch. You will also run ground and insulated neutral from the main panel to the transfer switch, and ground and insulated neutral to the subpanel from the transfer switch. Note that neither neutral nor ground are switched in the transfer switch. The generator can optionally be grounded to a rod.
If you cannot lift the bond, disconnect the ground wire to the transfer switch at the generator (or don't run a ground wire at all). The subpanel will still be grounded from the unswitched ground wire from the main panel. The generator cannot be grounded to a rod because this would tie the neutral to ground in a second location through the bond.
Best Answer
It is telling you that each slot will take a tandem breaker. The lightning bolt like line through the layout is just a way of communicating a repeating pattern in limited space.