Watts not zero when breaker is off

[peppersass]

I used a small cable tie every five CTs, snugging up pretty close to the fifth CT and pulling the leads tight. That tends to keep the CTs off the breakers.

There's really no way to prevent CTs or their leads from touching the AC wires. Probably the only danger would be a cut in the lead insulation coming in contact with the stripped portion of an AC wire or the breaker screw. In that sense, it would be safer to tie each CT and its leads to the AC wires. But that would make maintenance much more difficult and might be a code violation.

When I get around to posting all the photos, you'll see that I had a really hard time keeping the Split 200s from touching the stripped portion of the mains, which stick up out of the 200A breaker. Had to install some split tubing to lift the CTs off the exposed part of the mains.

If I had the time, I'd rewire the panel. Lots of sub-optimal routing and excess wire. One of the reasons I wanted to do this project was to check the load balance between the left and right mains. I'm sure the contractors who did our remodelings didn't give itmuch thought.

Also found a recently-added neutral connected to the ground bus instead of the neutral bus (probably not dangerous, but not code), and two wires connected to a breaker designed for one wire. Fixed those. As previously mentioned, I found neutral tied to ground in the well pump subpanel, which is a big no-no. All these fixes are side benefits of installing my GEM/DB system!