[Barelyhandy81]

Hello,
I recently purchased an intermatic whole house surge protector (smart guard). I want to have it installed, however the panel I have is currently full and from what I understand this surge protector needs a dedicated 30 amp breaker. I had an electrician come out and take a look and they thought we could double my HVAC air handlers on the same breaker to make room. This sounded a little off to me and from my research it seems likes it would not comply with code to have the air handlers not on their own dedicated circuits. That aside, I am looking for suggestions about how to have a whole house surge protector installed if the panel is already full. Do I need to have a sub panel added? Other options? Thanks!

 

[CodeMatters]

Depending on panel specs and what you already have in there, you
may be able to make room using tandems.

Another option is installing surge protector at meter:

 

[seharper]

Read the instructions carefully. IME having a dedicated breaker is an ideal, but some are able to share breakers with other loads. Keep in mind a surge suppressor doesn't actually *use* any power in the normal sense of the word, so trying to provision for ampacity is a fairly nonsensical exercise. It merely needs to move potentially large numbers of amps in and out *instantaneously* as needed to suppress surges. This amount of amps may be a whole lot larger than 30A, but the impulse is unlikely to last long enough to activate the magnetic trip.

That makes even more sense if it's sharing the breaker with the appliance that makes most of the surges

Further some breakers are permitted to be double-tapped. You must stick with breakers UL-Listed or Classified for your panel though.

The above worked out nicely in my installation of one.

 

[u2slow]

Further some breakers are permitted to be double-tapped. You must stick with breakers UL-Listed or Classified for your panel though.

And the flip-side is some Codes forbid double-tapping even though some breaker terminals are designed for it. :whistling2:

 

[Barelyhandy81]

Thanks for your feedback! My electrician moved some stuff around to free up a breaker at the top for the surge protector. My panel is not rated for tandem breakers.