Sizing a circuit for new tank

[Coral Hind]

Somehow when the electricians did the heavy-up on my panel a couple of years ago they managed to use up the entire neutral bus on one side and very few on the other side, but the breakers are full on the other side. Not sure how that worked out. It violates my sense of order to put the breaker and hot on one side and run the white neutral over to the other side of the box, but I suppose it's all the same thing.

 

Your panel might have had isolated bars so the neutral bar was on one side and the other side was the ground bar. In some main panels these are not bonded together but are bonded out in the meter box. In some areas it is also a local code to have them on seperate bars even if the bars are bonded so the inspectors can easily count and verify connections.

[AlanM]

I know what you mean, but mine doesn't seem to be like that. It's a SquareD panel, don't remember the model, but the kind where you put the breakers in with a round clip and then pop the other side in. It seems like they put most of the big breakers on the left, which is 1 neutral each for a bunch of large breakers. So the neutral bar on that side is fairly empty, but the strain relief clamps leading in to that side are pretty full with 1 large cable each, so I think that's the deal. Then they put the individual breakers on the right with 1 neutral each, so like 15 of them on that side and 6-7 on the left side.

 

Also, the neutral is a 2 level bar and they used up the front screw terminals rather than the back ones, so it's heck to try to sneak another neutral behind them and route the cables nicely along the side of the box.

 

You're right, I'd have to move stuff around to put the generator backveed breaker up at the top if I wanted to put in an interlock plate.