What is the advantage to using 2-pole breakers to feed 2 120v circuits? Is it just cleaner wiring in box?

Question

My box has all 120v circuits fed using 2-pole breakers (and all are properly PHYSICALLY tied together so shared neutral is always dead when de-energized). The only advantage I see this offers is a nice cleanly wired box....is there something I"m missing?

The only disadvantage is i have to turn off both circuits together (i know its a saftey issue to not do so, like i said all the 2-poles are physically joined), more of an inconvienence...

Answer 1

There are many advantages of using a multiwire branch circuit (what you have). They don't always need to be on a 2 pole breaker, causing both circuits to be turned off together. The other answer mentioned one case, but I wouldn't expect that to be common.

The advantages of a multiwire circuit include less copper being used (fewer wires to accomplish the same thing), less voltage drop, less time to install. All a cost savings.

Answer 2

I cannot think of an advantage. However, this is a National Electrical Code requirement if you have 2 different circuits under the same yoke [210.7(C)]. This means having 1 circuit supplying power to the top part of a receptacle and a different circuit supplying power to the bottom part of the same receptacle.

This is also common with lighting. Sometimes we will put 2 lighting circuits on a 2 pole switch so we can turn on all of the lights at once; per the customers request. However this is typically done in commercial applications.