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Shop breaker box question

To: <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
Subject: Shop breaker box question
From: "Mark Sansouci" <msansouc@rochester.rr.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 21:37:16 -0400
Hello-
I have benefited from your expertise in the past, now I need some advice!

I moved from the city to the county so I could better enjoy my toys.  One of
the outbuildings on my new "estate" is a shop with a somewhat checkered past.
It was originally an in-ground pool.  Eventually the pool was filled in and a
building built over it.  That building was then converted to be used by the
owners to run a furniture refinishing business.  I think that was when
electric was added (1970s?)  Anyway, the building has served a number of
purposes since then.  When I moved in several years ago, I disconnected all
the wires to the panel as there were simply too many unexplained outages and I
was not sure what might be in the walls.  anyway, this weekend I needed to run
a few simple circuits.

While I am certainly NOT an electrician, I have added outlets, switches, etc.
In this case, I needed to add about 4 simple circuits.  One for lights, and 3
for outlets.  Everything went well, until it came time to put the breakers in
the box.   Most of the existing (now empty) breakers are "double" 20 amp
breakers - I assume for 220 machines used in the past?  Very few single
breakers.  My problem?  When I put in my breakers (singles, 20A for the
outlets, 15A for lights)  only every other slot in the panel worked.  That is,
the bottom right slot had power, the one above it none, the next had power,
the one above that dead, etc.

What do I not understand about this?  Does this make any sense?   Thanks in
advance....

Mark






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