Just did something monumentally stupid (home wiring)

I've been known to do some really dumb-ass things in my day, but this one kinda takes the cake.

My mud room has a 24" baseboard electric heater and there is no light or outlet on the back patio.  I wanted to pull off that baseboard circuit, conduit up the wall, across the ceiling, down to the back door where I would put a switch.  Then straight out through the wall to the back patio where I would put an outlet.  Simple enough.  I pulled the cover off the baseboard heater and saw that it had black, white, and bare.  I put the meter on it and it tested 123v.  Went and flipped the single breaker to kill power.  Brilliant.  I did it right; conduit, waterproof box for outside, GFCI, 14 gauge.

I just finished it and thought the lights were pretty bright and then remembered that I don't remember testing across black and white.  Sure enough.  240v.  berkeley.  Then I remembered the single breaker and thought "how could it be 240v?", so I pulled the panel apart to realize that it was a double-width breaker and they didn't pull the knockout out of the panel.  The knockout in the face of the panel was covering the other half of the breaker.

Is there any kosher way to combine wires from that baseboard heater to get 120v?  Or do I need to run another white back to the panel (very not easy).  Should I just pull the breaker, replace it with a single, and put the white in the bus bar to convert the heater to 120v?

And yes, it's totally OK to laugh at me and make fun of me.

Don't feel bad. My father and I were replacing the meter, entrance cable, and panel  on my house. We have both been in the electrical business for a long time, so we were doing it hot. I climbed the ladder to cut the connections at the weather head. My dad walked up and cut the three conductor cable with a pair of uninsulated bolt cutters. No one was injured or even shocked, but it did manage to blow a set of bolt cutter in half and scare the crap out of both of us. 

I looked at him. His first words were, "That was stupid." I didn't argue that point with him. 

In reply to Toyman01 : holy E36 M3

Curtis: is this what you need? 

https://www.doityourself.com/forum/electrical-ac-dc/578908-get-two-120v-circuits-one-240v-circuit.html

Edit: 240v is simply two hots and a neutral, if my limited knowledge is correct. I’m pretty sure my dad wired an attic light fixture off an HVAC unit 240v line once, similar to your task

Something about electricity sure can bring out the dumz. I don't wanna think about the number of wrenches I have with the scars that prove this, from being used as handy conduits between battery terminals. I try to not muck about with house current for obvious reasons. 

Haaa... I did a similar thing when wiring dad's shed.  I put the internal lights and one external light on the same switch.  When I had finished the inside I wired the outside box.  As I was squeezing the dikes to trim the extra romex I remembered that I hadn't turned the switch off.  Ruined a good pair of dikes.

I also killed a perfectly good Fluke digital multimeter by trying to test a Delta leg and forgot that I had the test leads in the amperage socket from when I was tracking down a battery drain in my E30.  I also blew some very expensive commercial fuses.  Landlord was less than happy

OHSCrifle said:

In reply to Toyman01 : holy E36 M3

Curtis: is this what you need?

https://www.doityourself.com/forum/electrical-ac-dc/578908-get-two-120v-circuits-one-240v-circuit.html

 

Not quite.  Mine is hot-hot-ground.  If I had a neutral I could do it, but this is just 12/2 with ground, so black, white, and bare.  I don't have a neutral in the heater.

What wires did you measure 123V?  Probably the black and bare.  Which ever ones they were, just use that pair.  Not code but I have done that numerous times.  When we moved here 42 years ago there was a 240 outlet for a stove in the basement.  Had no need for a stove down there, but wife wanted a freezer and fridge.  No problem, take stove outlet and box off, put up larger box with two outlets and wired each outlet to one leg of the circuit.  Still there and working just fine.

You aren't completely clear here, but if you are keeping the baseboard heater, you need to pull another circuit.  

If not, buy a new breaker and then do as Ian F mentioned.  NEVER use the ground as a neutral.  It's a good way to get someone hurt.

My only problem with just putting the white on the N bar is that I will then be doubling the amperage that the heater will try to draw.  I won't feel comfy using the heater.  It's a 20a 2-pole breaker and I'm not really keen on using 12ga and doubling the amperage.  I'll look at the rating on the heater and see what the wattage is and do some maths.

There are two uncircuited spare breakers in the box, so I can switch to a single pole breaker right away if I do that.

So I could disconnect the heater, but then I have no backup heat if the furnace fails.  I suppose I could rig up a little cube heater set to 50 degrees in the winter but this all feels like a work-around patch job.

I'll try to explain what I did.  I wired it up normally assuming the circuit was 120v.  I pulled the end off the heater, ran 14/2 wg into it and just hooked it up white-white, black-black, and bare-bare.  Ran that through conduit to a box by the door with a dimmer.  Then I drilled straight out and put a metal outdoor box with a cover.   Then the other way, I brought SJO cord from the string lights on the patio into the duplex outdoor box and into the dimmer.

Cooter said:

You aren't completely clear here, but if you are keeping the baseboard heater, you need to pull another circuit.  

If not, buy a new breaker and then do as Ian F mentioned.  NEVER use the ground as a neutral.  It's a good way to get someone hurt.

Cooter wins. 

A few other guys should be prohibited from offering electrical advice online.

I missed the part about wanting/needing to maintain use of the heater.  If that is the case, you need to run a new circuit.  New breaker and new wiring. The heater should stay on a dedicated circuit with nothing else branched off it.

Ian F said:

I missed the part about wanting/needing to maintain use of the heater.  If that is the case, you need to run a new circuit.  New breaker and new wiring. The heater should stay on a dedicated circuit with nothing else branched off it.

I suppose I don't need to, its just the only backup heat in the house.  I knew that branching off the heater wasn't kosher, but also knew that the only things I was adding to the circuit were about 15 watts of LED lights and maybe a laptop charger in the outlet.  The heater has never actually been used other than testing it.  I don't use it for heat, but its nice to set it to 50 in the winter when I leave as a just-in-case thing.

I think what I'll do is see about running another circuit for the heater if I can get to it in the crawl space beside the basement.  I'll move the light/outlet circuit to an adjacent empty bay on its own breaker and run some new 12/2 for the heater.  Then I'm basically using the baseboard heater as a junction box.

That is the right way to fix my boo-boo, just a pain in the ass.

Curtis said:

I suppose I don't need to, its just the only backup heat in the house.  I knew that branching off the heater wasn't kosher, but also knew that the only things I was adding to the circuit were about 15 watts of LED lights and maybe a laptop charger in the outlet.  The heater has never actually been used other than testing it.  I don't use it for heat, but its nice to set it to 50 in the winter when I leave as a just-in-case thing.

What you're describing is essentially hack wiring.  Please don't.  The 110V tap won't be properly protected.  You might get away with it for awhile. Until someone who doesn't know what was done plugs something they shouldn't into that receptacle, overloads the wiring, the breaker doesn't trip and the wiring burns.  

Hal said:

What wires did you measure 123V?  Probably the black and bare.  Which ever ones they were, just use that pair.  Not code but I have done that numerous times.  When we moved here 42 years ago there was a 240 outlet for a stove in the basement.  Had no need for a stove down there, but wife wanted a freezer and fridge.  No problem, take stove outlet and box off, put up larger box with two outlets and wired each outlet to one leg of the circuit.  Still there and working just fine.

Do not listen to this person!! Holy E36 M3 that is dangerous!!

Curtis said:

My only problem with just putting the white on the N bar is that I will then be doubling the amperage that the heater will try to draw.  I won't feel comfy using the heater.  It's a 20a 2-pole breaker and I'm not really keen on using 12ga and doubling the amperage.  I'll look at the rating on the heater and see what the wattage is and do some maths.

There are two uncircuited spare breakers in the box, so I can switch to a single pole breaker right away if I do that.

So I could disconnect the heater, but then I have no backup heat if the furnace fails.  I suppose I could rig up a little cube heater set to 50 degrees in the winter but this all feels like a work-around patch job.

I'll try to explain what I did.  I wired it up normally assuming the circuit was 120v.  I pulled the end off the heater, ran 14/2 wg into it and just hooked it up white-white, black-black, and bare-bare.  Ran that through conduit to a box by the door with a dimmer.  Then I drilled straight out and put a metal outdoor box with a cover.   Then the other way, I brought SJO cord from the string lights on the patio into the duplex outdoor box and into the dimmer.

 

The heater won't try to use twice the amperage at 120v as it does at 240v, it just plain old won't work at all. Pull the proper wiring to the circuit you are proposing, and for the love of humanity do not use the bare as a current carrying conductor. Maybe hire someone qualified. Wiring isn't a hobby.

If you have 240v in a hot/neutral/ground  3 wire cable someone that didn't know what they were doing ran it.   Bad idea all around. 

My previous house was owned by a guy who knew nothing about wiring. It was a mess.   (He was in the local corvette club, did lots of his own mechanical work,  and did lots of autocrossing. So much for mechanical ability translating into electrical wiring ability)

  He connected aluminum to copper without using proper connections, had hot and neutral switched multiple places,  converted 240v lines to 120 by taping off one of the hot wires.   I almost had a fire when one of the copper receptacles he hooked to the aluminum wire shorted out in the wall because of dis-similar metal corrosion.  I ended up replacing every receptacle in the house with the proper Al-Cu type.

You can all relax.  I'm not hacking anything or planning on anything dangerous.  What I did was made a stupid mistake on the voltage and I'm looking to correct it the right way.

And no... I would never use a bare ground as a neutral.

I will either just ditch the heater and run the conductors to a single pole breaker, or run a new circuit if I want to keep the heater.  Thanks for all the pointers.

jharry3 said:

If you have 240v in a hot/neutral/ground  3 wire cable someone that didn't know what they were doing ran it.   Bad idea all around. 

 

This is not a correct statement. 240V on a two conductor cable (black,white,bare) is absolutely code compliant, and the norm in house wiring.

Ian F said:

Curtis said:

I suppose I don't need to, its just the only backup heat in the house.  I knew that branching off the heater wasn't kosher, but also knew that the only things I was adding to the circuit were about 15 watts of LED lights and maybe a laptop charger in the outlet.  The heater has never actually been used other than testing it.  I don't use it for heat, but its nice to set it to 50 in the winter when I leave as a just-in-case thing.

 

What you're describing is essentially hack wiring.  Please don't.  The 110V tap won't be properly protected.  You might get away with it for awhile. Until someone who doesn't know what was done plugs something they shouldn't into that receptacle, overloads the wiring, the breaker doesn't trip and the wiring burns.  

You're right... I just didn't realize until too late that it was a 2-pole breaker.  I'm not saying I'm going to keep it that way.

When I first looked at it and thought it was 120v, I did the math.  20A breaker and 12/2 feeding a 350w (effectively 3A) heater means there would be plenty of amperage left for a 15A outlet and 40 watts of lighting.

But then I pulled the panel apart and saw the concealed other half of the breaker.  Now that I know its all kinds of incompatible, I'm fixing it.

Mazdax605 said:

jharry3 said:

If you have 240v in a hot/neutral/ground  3 wire cable someone that didn't know what they were doing ran it.   Bad idea all around. 

 

This is not a correct statement. 240V on a two conductor cable (black,white,bare) is absolutely code compliant, and the norm in house wiring.

This is correct... especially because the heater has no neutral wire to connect to.  It has in, out, and ground.

When I put the 240 v circuit in for my lift I realized something key about home wiring.

240 v circuits are simple, but everyone thinks they are confusing. 120 v circuits are the confusing ones, but everyone thinks they are simple.

Robbie said:

When I put the 240 v circuit in for my lift I realized something key about home wiring.

240 v circuits are simple, but everyone thinks they are confusing. 120 v circuits are the confusing ones, but everyone thinks they are simple.

Neither are confusing when you know what you're doing. 

Threads like this could kill someone.

Good job, Curtis.

In reply to SVreX :

I would have to disagree. Threads like this can help people understand what they are dealing with. Electricity isn't complicated. No more so than plumbing or roofing. And with a little information, it's no more dangerous.