Aluminum Stranded Wire On Qo Breaker?

My house has 240v outlet from the previous owner for a kiln of some sort. Im putting a tanning bed in its place. The plug on the tanning bed is a L6-30. I checked specs on the tanning bed and it requires a L6-30 recepticle and a 30amp circuit breaker. I went to the local home fixit store and found the correct recepticle and bought a 2-pole Siemens 30a circuit breaker. After shutting off the main breaker and using testing equipment I pulled out the 50a breaker and replaced it with the 30a..no problem. Heres where Im not sure....The L6-30 recepticle that goes in the wall has a X and a Y and a G marking on it. The G is grounding per instructions, w is white or grey, and X,Y,Z are black, red, blue or etc etc.The wires that come out of the house are red, black and a bare aluminum bradied type wire. Looking at the back from the top counterclockwise  I hooked up the red, then black, then the bare nraided to the G (has green screw) Is the black and red correct? And why doesnt it say red, black and gound?  Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks!!!
      

I am replacing a feed through breaker panel the bus bar and breaker was inverted but the main breaker is up and down with on being down and I also noticed that the plastic in the back that holds the bus bar is cracked.



I bought a newer model from the same manufacture that has a much better design and a better main breaker.  But unlike the one I already have when you invert it the breaker slots don't line up and cover does not fit properly.



I was thinking about just cutting out the center where the breaker slots are.  I measured and if I cut it just right all I have to do is turn it over and it will line up just have to bolt or weld it in place.  Would this be legal



I also thought about putting the panel the way it came and feeding the bus bar hot and keeping the panel under the 6 throw rule.  Or would that not work because I am using feed through.  There will be 4 double pole breakers and the one main that feeds a sub panel.





I really hate the cheap design of this panel.







I plan to replace it with this.




      

I have a tankless hot water heater with the following requirements:

Voltage/Freq:240v/60

Wattage:21kw

Max amp load: 88

Min req circuit breaker: 2x60

Min wire size: 2x8 AWG copper (note:should be 2x6)



Amps to house is 200. Breaker box is 10 years old with space to add new breaker. The old 30 breaker will come out, new 2x60 in, and new wiring will need to be run approx 15 feet to location of old water heater.



Initial quotes from electricians via phone are all over the place and I have someone coming to house on Friday for a site estimate. In my understanding, the work is straight forward as stated above. What am I missing? Or what might the electricians be thinking I am not (besides pulling a $40 permit)?
      

We want to run 110V service to a portable building 95' from the breaker box at the house. It will run a 110V 8000 BTU AC (dedicated breaker), two single bulb light fixtures and 2 additional wall outlets. Our breaker box at the house is full, but I am being told I can remove a single breaker in the box and replace it with one that contains two breakers. What is the name of this type of breaker and where can I get one? What size breaker should be used for this amount of power requirement? What size breakers should I have in the load center on the portable building?
      

I have been looking for a "GOOD" circuit breaker finder and have always had good luck with Amprobe products.

The one I was looking at is here http://www.zorotools.com/g/Circuit%2...ders/00052552/





There are six more on this link  http://www.zorotools.com/s/?c=&q=cir...er&1.x=0&1.y=0

The Amprobe unit is $63,does anyone have the Amprobe model ?

Do you you like it and is it reliable?
      

I'm new to this site.  But would appreciate some troubleshooting.  I just renovated my kitchen, gutted and all, finished in the Fall.  I did not replace wiring to the dryer, nor tamper with it, to my knowledge.  We did have an electrician add a small fuse panel.  We did not add more appliances then before, added some lights, but mostly used the room to separate things out.  Had a mentor do the wiring, many years of experience, very tidy and careful work, though not electrician by trade.  We have a standard 200 amp box as far as i know.  The house is 100 years old, but the wiring isn't.



In October my mother in law heard a very loud bang.  The electric dryer had been running.  She smelled smoke.  At the dryer receptacle was molten plastic sprayed onto the wall, caused by overheating at that point, due to I don't know what.  I thought maybe I had knocked something loose in the receptacle when i was drywalling around it.  I can't remember now if the breaker had tripped.  The receptacle and plug were toast. 



I replaced the receptacle, I replaced the dryer cord, not the breaker.   The dryer worked fine until february, when it stopped heating.  I found a bad thermal fuse and replaced it, the very common two pronged white one. 



The dryer worked fine until early April when it stopped heating again.  I checked all the fuses/thermostats on the back and the heating element, as I had done the first time.  Nothing was bad.  I checked the voltage coming out of the wall, as I had done the first time, only this time I did it correctly and got a reading that told me to check the breaker in the panel, which had not thrown.  When I checked the voltage between the Nuetral Bus and the two terminals on the Dryer's 30 amp breaker I only got a good reading on one of them, telling me that the breaker was bad.  While at the box, i noticed that to the main breaker, from where the conduit comes into the box from outside, the nuetral wires are bare all the way up, no insulation, and at the terminal of the main breaker they appear to have all melted together, even a couple small pieces have melted off of the "bundle." 



Switched the range 50 amp breaker with the dryer, dryer worked fine, nothing was back fed either.  Bought a new 30 amp breaker for the dryer and installed it on Saturday.  Also on Saturday we were given a dryer, about 4 years old, same as ours, so i hooked it up and saved ours for a spare, which I deemed still good since it seemed the breaker was the issue.  New Dryer worked fine from saturday until today.  Now it won't turn on, though it didn't cut out mid load yesterday either.  The breaker did not trip.  I repeat, no tripped breaker.  I just checked the voltage at the wall and it seems to have that same problem where one side of the receptacle gets a reading of 120, and the other a reading of about 5.  The problem must be bigger than the breaker.  I am not an electrician, I am a welder.  I have gone as far as I could on my own.  Thank you.
      

I was in my attic today doing some work when I noticed a bare twisted copper wire that ran along a ceiling joist.  All along it was charred wood and charred  fiberglass insulation.  Luckily the fire it caused did not sustain itself and I was able to find the problem.  I then traced the wire and figured it originated in my breaker box (although I could not determine exactly where in the box).  It then ran across my attic alongside a ceiling joist and down into a wall ending up connecting to my water meter.

  Several months ago,  the electric company was restoring power to my area and ended up sending a power surge into my house taking out an oscillating fan, a toaster and a GFI outlet.  Last winter, I also had to have my electric meter pole replaced by an electrician after a tree branch took it out during an ice storm.

  I was wondering if one of these events could have caused the ground wire to heat up or something else entirely is going on?  I am suppose to have a company blow in  insulation soon and I need to figure this problem out.  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks.
      

I'm installing a new light in a closet with an in-line switch. Because of the build of my house, a mid-run receptacle is the only power source available without ripping open a bunch of wall and ceiling. I've got everything installed and tied into the receptacle with appropriate pig tails, but whenever I turn the power back on, the breaker for that circuit instantly flips. I've double-checked all the connections and wires, and they are connected to the appropriate terminals. Tied the pig tails into the terminals on the top socket of the receptacle.



Could this be the result of a faulty switch? The breaker trips whether the switch is in the off or on position, and there are no bulbs in the light fixture. I'm stumped. The receptacle in question is rarely used, and I've powered off everything else in the room to be on the safe side, but the breaker trips.
      

In my older home i just founf out that all the upstairs ( 2 bedrooms) outlets are installed on the same 20 amp circuit breaker for my kitchen. which might be a reason that when too many things are running this breaker trips. My question is I want to add a 15 amp breaker and isolate all the upstairs on this breaker so the kitchen stays seperate. i Found the romex that is installed to a downstairs outlet that is connected to all the other outlets upstairs but since it is hidden in the walls and i narrowed it down to 3 possiblities upstairs, but i am not sure. How can i test to see which one of the romex wires it could be so i can attach my new romex from the new breaker and just abandon the old wire all together.

PS. when i disconnnect the romex from the outlet downstairs in the kitchen all the outlets upstairs stop working, that is how i know that is the one that brings the electriity upstairs.
      

I have a small 19 gallon water heater in a small garage space, that was installed by some questionable handymen a few months back.  I just had the plumbing and septic finished so tested the hot water, only to find the element was already burned out.



I noticed however, that this 120v unit is wired via 10 gauge wire to a 30 amp double breaker.  This is questionable because I thought a 120v appliance would be wired to a single pole on the hot wire and run neutral to the neural panel area.



My question is, can I run the hot wire out of one side of the double breaker without safety issues, or should I definitely replace it with a single pole breaker?



I would normally not question the work, but everything these guys did already had to be adjusted, so I'm only naturally assuming this may need to be also.



If its safe, I would like to simply things and just connect the one hot and leave an open space in the other half of the double pole... Is this possible?



Thanks for your advice-