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Basic House Wiring Circuits and Circuit Breakers

Summary: This article looks at common 120 volt and 240 volt house wiring circuits and the circuit breakers that are installed identifying the types and amperage sizes used in most homes.

Learn more about House Wiring Circuits and Circuit Breakers

The electrical circuit breakers serving your home wiring circuits are intended for switching and protection of your home's wiring from high temperatures caused by excess current higher than the rating of the wire.

While thermal-magnetic circuit breakers are the key element for overload and short-circuit protection of your electrical system, there are potentially dangerous conditions that do not involve over-current.

The following electrical circuit breakers should be utilized to provide further protection.

Basic House Wiring Circuits
	15 amp 120 volt circuits
	Lighting	Living Room Kitchen
	General Purpose Outlets	Living Rooms Den Library Office

	20 amp 120 volt circuits
	120 volt appliance outlets	Kitchen Garage

	30 amp 240 volt circuits
	Large Appliances	Electric Clothes Dryer Electric Water Heater Small Air Conditioners

	AFCI Circuits 15 and 20 amp, 120 volt
	General Purpose Outlets	Bedrooms
	Required for bedroom circuits.

Garage Sub-Panel - 4-Wire Feed

I connected a 60 amp sub panel in my garage, I used underground wire rate 600 volts. which has BX cable covered. I have connected the red and black as main power. the blue wire is taped white, connected to the left side of the grounding bar, and bare wire to the right side, I would like to know if this matters with the bare wire to ground, everything seems to be working fine, no breakers are getting warm , and I tripped a breaker to be sure all is working, your help in this matter would be appreciated,
Thank you AL.

Al, this looks good with one exception. Because this is a sub-panel it requires a 4-wire circuit feed with a dedicated neutral and a dedicated ground, with termination of each going to separate terminals strips or terminal bars. The neutral terminal strip is not connected to the ground at this sub-panel location and is dedicated for neutrals only. The ground wire gets terminated to a separate ground terminal strip that IS connected or bonded to the sub-panel enclosure and is dedicated for ground wires only. The ground wire and neutral wires can be terminated together ONLY at the Main Electrical Panel.