I am hooking up a disconnect for heating air unit. The instructions state use a 25 amp 2 pole breaker with 10-2 wire. The breaker says wire size 14-2. It is an Eaton BR225 beaker. Will it work with 10-2?
Electrical – Will the breaker accept #10 wire even though the chart lists #14
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Related Solutions
The panel can indeed support a 240V breaker. The question you should ask is, is there space in the panel to physically accommodate additional breakers?
Based on the model number, your panel should look something like this.
Notice how this example image has lots of blank spaces. In a panel like this, there's no problem at all installing a new breaker (or double pole breaker in your case). However, it's not likely your panel looks like this. More probable, is your panel has all or nearly all the slots full.
If there are not two free spaces in the panel, you'll not be able to install a new breaker in this panel. You have a few options in this case.
- Install tandem breakers where possible to free up slots.
- Install a subpanel.
The other problem you could have, is that your current service will not handle the additional load. This panel can handle 100 amperes, but that does not mean you have 100 amp service. You'll have to check with the local utility to determine the size of the current service. If
Lastly, the panel might already be close to being overloaded. If you have all electric appliances (Range, Dryer, heat, water heater, etc.), adding a hot tub could cause the main breaker to trip from time to time. This will completely depend on your current consumption of power, which is not possible to know based on the information you've provided.
tl;dr
Contact a local licensed Electrician to determine what's required with installing a hot tub.
I'm not sure where you live but US code calls for a minimum of #8 if you're using copper or #6 if you're using aluminum. There would be no advantage in using a larger wire size in this case because at 30ft you will have negligible losses.
I don't know what your voltage is or how many phases you have but for an example of what your losses may be, I will assume a worst case scenario - 100V single phase. If you used the #6 aluminum wire, you would have a maximum of 1.72% voltage drop (loss). If you used the copper #8, you would have a maximum voltage drop of 1.66%. And just remember, when you are calculating losses (voltage drop), the higher the voltage, the better because higher voltages have less voltage drop.
Note: I use the Southwire Voltage Drop Calculator for most of my voltage drop calculations. http://www.southwire.com/support/voltage-drop-calculator.htm
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Best Answer
The Eaton catalog clearly says that the breaker can accept anything between and including #14 - #4 AWG.
You should follow the instructions that tell you to use #10, as it will fit the breaker, and will be appropriate for the amps you are running.