use 2 pole circuit breaker for both basement light and plug

Question

I am doing my basement partitions from scratch and i am doing also the electrical wiring. I have check in the electrical panel board and they have put 2 pole breaker in the plug in the basement. Can i use it other for my lights in the basement?

Answer 1

Depends what you mean by "2-pole". There's real 2-pole breakers, and then there's double-stuffs (twin, duplex, tandem). Not the same at all.

It's always OK to run 2 simple circuits -- i.e. each circuit has its own cable and the cable contains its own dedicated neutral.

However, if the 2 circuits are in 1 cable and share the neutral, it must be a 2-pole - a double-stuff will overload the neutral and potentially shock installers.

If the breaker is a true 2-pole, then they will common trip, meaning if one overloads it will trip the other. There's nothing wrong with that, but it might be a nuisance.

If the 2 circuits do share the neutral, that is called a multi-wire branch circuit. Common trip isn't required, but common maintenance shutoff is... and a 2-pole breaker does provide that. In fact, that's what we recommend for this type of circuit, because a 2-pole breaker is the easiest way to do it! Further, this is the only way to do GFCI on this type of circuit.