Bulldog pushmatic breakers
Hello from Bridgeton NJ,
I have a bull dog pushmatic circuit breaker board in my house about 20 circuits. My question is can I just swap out a 50 amp circuit breaker with a 20 amp breaker? the 50 amp breaker was for a electric stove that we got rid of and I could use the breaker space better for a 20 amp breaker for an addition we are finishing. I also would want to know if the 50 amp breaker is taking up 2 spaces in the board and can i install 2 x amp breakers in the same space of the 50 amp breaker. I do know that this is dangerous and I have in the past disconnected the breaker and installed new ones but this is an old unit and I was wondering if this pushmatic system is standard breakers ie a pushmatic breaker is the same as another pushmatic breaker. Please let me know and any insight would be helpful.
Thanks in advance,
Bridgetonjim
Replies
I am guesing the 50amp is a 220 unit for the stove, on the pushmatic one leg is on the left and one is on the right, so you could put one 20 Amp 110 on each side, or one 20 amp 220 in the place of the 50 amp. The pushmatic breakers are still available but they are expensive. There is also a third party making breakers for the pushmatic boxes. As long as it is labled for a pushmatic box you should be okay.
Hi - just noticed your posting!
I just did nearly this exact same thing in my place a few weeks back. I swapped out a 220 volt 30A dual GTE Pushmatic for two 110 at 20 amp circuits.
I had a 220V outlet for an ancient AC unit near a window. I new I'd never buy a 220V air conditioner (I just bought two smaller 110 units).
In my area, North of Boston, I went to a Ralph Pill Elec supply house. They had single phase Pushmatic breakers for $20. I think they're made by Siemens now. So, I don't know if 20 bucks is a lot of money for a breaker, but $40 for the two didn't seem bad to me...
I did some searching around once for another project, and I found that a Pushmatic GFI breaker goes for about $120 and those are harder to find.
Anyways - I'm no electrician; be careful! my Pushmatic breaker box didn't have a main breaker for me to de-energize my box, so I did it hot. Not recommended! But if you use your head, you'll be fine. If you're not comfortable doing it - don't (please)!
There are Pushmatics and Pushmatics. My condo is circa '62 and has the old version. Home Depot carries the new version - which has a stab on the back and won't fit the old bars. Other than that, they have the same form factor.
The guy at the local electrical supply house suggested just grinding it off. The breaker engineer at Seimens didn't think much of the idea.
Bought some oldies used from a guy who was demoing a cabin in Michigan.
What they need to do is offer new version bus bars to upgrade the panel. Mine is a panel in a stucco wall and all done in EMT so changing over to a new panel is not a happy thought.
There is a link below where I found a decent deal online. I needed some Tandems as I only have the single ones.
BTW I have a box of these in the basement. Mostly 20 and 15 single pole genuine pushmatic. $15 shipped if you need one or two as that is about what they were going for on ebay when I was buying, Been thinking about putting them on ebay but never got around to taking the pictures. I did buy some tandems on ebay but they were destroyed in shipping so the insurance money paid for the ones I bought at this link. Check ebay as there are almost always some on there.
http://www.aplussupply.com/break/push/push.htm
Yeah, I checked that link,
The ones I found at Ralph Pill were what that website calles "Original Brand Pushmatic"- -the black ones. Single Pole, 20 Amp.
Either way - it sounds like they're still available. So that's good news!