On one leg or two legs?

Jea48,

Yes, That is the wire.

I think i have to hire an electrictian to redo the whole thing. What kind of wire do you recommend?

EG., see my post above for starters.

Are or is this cable using twisted pairs?? In essence, did you simply run one cables then to use as a dedicated line for such a circuit? Did you keep the positive (hots) still twisted together? Same for the Neutral and ground, were they twisted together?

You should have put another neutral in there as you went with using two different phases. Albeit, things should work anyhow.

I’ve seen worse BTW.

If so the buzzing issue you experience without the use of the conditioner is due to some ground loop issue somewhere in the house. Plain and simple.

Keeping the pairs twisted together at first made me think you’ve added some inductance along the way too that would not ordinarily be there usually. But that’s not the deal.

As you ran two twisted pairs of #10 AWG stranded the wire alone should stand up to 30 A. Solid #10 = 25A max. Stranded #12 = 25A., and solid #12 = 20A max. the thinking behind why use the appropriate gauge wire is this, heat as well is a factor which increases current. An appropriately sized conductor will transmit and conduct that heat energy sooner than will larger gauge conductors.

…and that’s what we are trying to prevent here with proper ckt applications… fire, not necessarily saving the causer of the overload, but the rest of the array and perhaps lives.

Had you ran two runs of grounds and commons, I think it would have been more to code and better overall… at least in my area, that’s code.

In effect you have ONE dedicated line attached to two breakers for all intents and purposes, and again, it should work… but it’s the ‘cheapie/temp’ way to do things… and it pays to do electrical things properly.

To find the issue, turn off everything BUT the breaker controlling the thing that’s buzzing. Turn on the thing. See if it still buzzes.

If so it’s a ground loop… and likely comes from either your Pay TV svc. Or your phone svc.

If it doesn’t buzz while it’s the only energized thing in the house, begin flipping on breakers on that phase, one at a time… continue to the opposite phase, until you find the ckt to which the ground can be attributed.

Worse case scenario would be the ground issue is an accumulation of household items being used in which case l3eaving on the amp, and energizing more breakers/circuits will increase the level of the hum/buzz as you go along.

The choices once the item causing the issue is found are:

Call an electrician.

Disconnect things from the ckt which is causing the GL until you get to the actual culprit and never use that again. Cell phone charger, UPS for the PC, rheostat (lighting dimmer) , etc. or get a better one.

If the buzz is there with everything else off, it is most likely the cable TV or phone… to make sure, disconnect the coax feeding the Sat/cable box and see if you still have the buzz/hum.

In that case a transformer can be put inline with the coax feeding the cable box. Sometimes right at the box, or outside the house where the coax run begins.

If it’s the phone install another ground rod explicitly for the phone. I won’t guarantee this move, but I’ve seen it work. Disconnect the orig ground ckt, and drop the new rod several feet away from the orig one. 10 ft. should do.

Lift the ground from the receptacle the amp is plugged into. Either by a cheater plug (both hot & common but no ground pin), or by removing it from inside the outlet itself.

If you chose to put breakers one on each phase because that was the only available unused slots. There is a work around for that as well.

They are called Wafer breakers. Half the size of standard breakers so that two fit into the same space as ONE regular breaker. They come in various ampere & voltage sizes too. Thus allowing you to put both ded lines onto one phase, which was recommended.

I must also say here at this point, I was an electrician in my past. Mainly industrial and commercial efforts… some residential now and then on the side. I gotta say here you really should contact a card carrying sparky for this event, but if you feel compelled to proceed, it is surely at your own risk.

Not trying to scare ya… I’M just CMA.

Good luck. Hope that helps.

01-23-09: Houstonreef
Yes, That is the wire.

Houstonreef,
You cannot use portable Cord for fixed branch circuit wiring.... It is not approved by UL or NEC for such use.

01-23-09: Houstonreef
What kind of wire do you recommend?

It all depends on your circumstances as well as what your local governing authority allows. The electrician will advice you what will meet the code in your area.

If allowed for your wiring situation my first choice would be NM-B cable. I would also use plastic rough-in boxes.

Second choice would be MC cable with aluminum armor.

At any rate tell the electrician you want 120V dedicated branch circuits.

Dedicated branch circuit?
A 120V branch circuit that consists of;
(1) hot conductor
(1) neutral conductor
(1) safety equipment grounding conductor.

Make sure each dedicated branch circuit has its own NM-B cable or MC cable.
Do not combine dedicated circuits in the same cable or raceway, (conduit).

Tell him you want solid core copper wire #12 awg minimum. If the branch circuits are long move up to #10 awg solid copper wire.

And for the reasons Gs5556 pointed out in his post the length of the dedicated branch circuits should be the same. At least as close as possible in length.

Terminate both dedicated branch circuits on the same leg in the electrical panel.

The length of dedicated ckts, one to the other, is superfluous. Arbitrary. Only really extensive runs of #12 romex (which is likely what will be used, unless otherwise specified) need to be addressed by increasing the wire gauge a step up.

This is not a common circumstance however. Even huge homes, or multi story homes, have additional sub fed panels these days, thus reducing the lengths of runs required. And thereby keeping the gauge of wire accordingly employed.

Commercial & industrial applications can vary some here, but residential installations seldom if ever need to address voltage drop issues by up scaling the wire type being used.

You can request the use of shielded cabling to further remove the ckt from ancillary or spurious artifacts… adjacent EMF, IHF, IM, etc. Again, I think this is overkill. If the runs do encompass higher current carrying supply lines, like HVAC, then it would be a more valid consideration… or if you simply wish to throw more $$$ at this… then by all means feel free.

I’d say save your money for conditioning, or other things.

Conductor sizes, load requirements, and max length specs can be found here:

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm