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Had a Tuesday last week that made me rethink how I check neutral bars, want to see if I'm overreacting
So last Tuesday I'm doing a panel swap in a house up in Elk Grove, been there since 7am, and something felt off the whole morning but I couldn't put my finger on it. I had already landed the new panel, torqued everything to spec, and was about to close it up when I noticed a neutral I swore I had landed on the bus was actually sitting loose behind it. I grabbed my torque screwdriver and sure enough it spun free, no resistance at all. Here's the thing, I had checked that bar twice with a tug test and it passed both times, which is exactly what scares me. I pulled every single neutral and found two more that were barely caught, all on the same bar, all from the same batch of breakers I picked up at the supply house that morning. Ended up re-landing all 22 neutrals by hand and going back over the whole thing with a torque wrench. Cost me like 90 extra minutes on a flat rate job and I ate it, but I keep thinking about what happens in 8 years when that connection heats up behind drywall. Has anyone else run into a run of breakers where the lugs just don't bite the way they should, or did I get a bad batch?
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ross.felix6h ago
That line about checking it twice with a tug test and it passing both times is the part that gets me, a tug test on a stranded neutral proves almost nothing if the lug is barely catching a few strands. Two or three loose lugs from one batch isn't some huge red flag either, sounds more like you just caught a normal sloppy run before it bit you.
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