My circuit box door says that Dryer and outside outlets are connected on breaker 13 and 14, uppon opening the box and retracing wires I found that Dryer wires are just dangling inside the box not connected. I would connect them to the breaker where it says it's supposed to be, but the wire for outside outlets is just so thick that I don't believe it's for those outlets (7 outlets and wire is 8 or 6 gauge, while dryer is 10 or 12). The two breakers are 50amp (red on one, black on other).
Would I be safe connecting Dryer wire to those breakers also?
Or am I better off replacing the two NA 20 amp breakers (they are for laundry plug and furnace black wire each) with two 50 amp breakers and connecting red wire for dryer on one and black on other?
Or should I replace those NA 20amp breakers with one 20amp tandem and one 30amp tandem?
Best Answer
If you haven't burned to a crisp yet...BURNINATE THIS PANEL
This box is very definitely a FPE Stab-Lok, and thus needs to be burninated with extreme predjudice before it burns your house down!
I'd simply replace it outright; ordinarily, an Eaton retrofit interior would be an option, but your panel is stuffed to the gills with tandems, and since tandem GFCI/AFCI breakers are not a thing, you will need far more spaces on your new panel than will fit in a cabinet that size (a 24 circuit CH main breaker retrofit interior requires 29" of height, and you only appear to have about 24"). I would get the largest panel I can, however, to avoid having "overstuffed electrical panel" syndrome again in the future.
As a result, a bare minimum replacement for this application would be a 30 space, 100A, main breaker unit; however, I would splash out and get a 42 or 54 space, 200/225A unit and downbreaker it to 100A (either through swapping to a lower amp main or using a backfed 100A branch breaker with a hold-down as the main as not all 200A panels can accept a 100A breaker in the main breaker position).