Need to know if my grounds and neutrals are connected right

Stubbie

Nothing is perfect and they call it objectionable current .. not deadly current .. though it can be under the correct circumstances.

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" One nice thing about the NEC articles ... you have lots of choices"

Stubbie

kwilcox

Damn... the light bulb just came on That Mike Holt diagram was perfect! I've always struggled with bonding and code from an understanding perspective. Parallel neutral currents... Of course! This has got to be the best thread ever!

zappa

Hey!!!!!!!! What happened to the picture? That was an excellent response.

Stubbie

I wasn't sure the administrator would appreciate it ... It also wasn't entirely correct as the conduit from the meter to the panel is not the responsibility of the utility lineman. They do work on stuff that is pretty scary and IMO need bigger

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" One nice thing about the NEC articles ... you have lots of choices"

Stubbie

WillK

I think my garage subpanel and feeder project ran in the neighborhood of $1500. You probably missed some parts.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I think that while some big things have been pointed out, there are some I wanted to cover in case they had not been pointed out.

Your neutral wire should be the same size as your hot wires, or I imagine you could use a hot wire that's bigger than your neutral if your circuit was sized for the smaller neutral wire.

Let's set that aside and say you're using 2 gage aluminum. There has been discussion here that the table in NEC that says you can use 2 gage aluminum for 100 amps applies to the service entrance, but for the table that you SHOULD be using 2 gage aluminum can only be used up to 90 amps. You'd need to step down to 4 gage, which I don't know off the top of my head you can get for amperage.

My garage subpanel is 100 amps and I'm using 2/0 for both hots and the neutral. I pulled 4 gage copper for my ground PLUS I used metal conduit which is also allowed to be used as your ground conductor if it is continuous between both panels, but that is much more difficult and costly to do.

As has been covered very well, you need the ground conductor.

You also mentioned it was inside condut for the risers. If your pictures are an indication, assuming you used PVC this conduit should have been schedule 80, schedule 40 is too thin for physical protection. Some inspectors might accept schedule 40, but the NEC can be read as requiring schedule 80. You would need to be buried 24 inches deep or more IIRC for direct burial.

You should have 2 ground rods pounded in at the barn, both connected to the panel. At the panel these connect to your ground bar, the ground screw that connects the ground bar to the neutral should be removed as has been covered here by the others.
From your pictures, it looks like that subpanel is connected by individual conductors which should have been inside conduit from one panel to the other.

Leave the main panel alone, it's fine to have neutral and ground on the same bar on the main panel and quite normal.

It sounds like this was done without a permit, and as I said the subpanel feeder would have had to have been done in conduit. I don't know the rules on whether a subpanel right next to a main requires seperate neutral, but I think that seperate neutral is required and as far as I know going that way is definitely allowed.

Regardless, the right thing to do would be that his gets permitted and inspected after the fact.

If you intend to use the wire you have, you should replace the breaker in your subpanel in the house with a 60 amp breaker, not a 100 amp breaker. The 100 amp breaker in the barn can stay as it's used as a shutoff, and an overcurrent condition would trip the breaker in the house.

If you intend to use 100 amps in the barn, you need to replace your wire.

Regardless, you should pull a permit. Your trench will need to be inspected before dirt is put back into it. You need to dig the trench anyway to put in the ground conductor even if you downsize circuit breakers to use the existing wires.

And don't even turn on your breaker in the house for this for testing or anything until you pass rough inspection.

This is the thing you've described that isn't broken, so don't try to fix it.


Your panel is a main lug, i.e. doesn't have its own main breaker/shutoff. You must have a panel with a main breaker in your barn. And running that wire for your test outlet right across the hot bus!!! It looks as if the ground wire from your NM cable could just about be touching the hot! Run that along the outside of the box.

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Please do NOT consider any "before" picture of my house as any kind of endorsement of any particular construction method. In fact, you should probably assume that if I post a "before" picture, I am posting it because I am soliciting advice on a proper replacement for one of MANY things done wrong by a previous owner.

pete0403

This thread has been an incridible read and I've been surfing all day on different aspects of house wiring. I find it so interesting and if I had to do it over again, I'd probably become an electrician.

Here is a link I found while looking at some other sites. It's not totally relevant to what's being discussed here. It's a PPT presentation on the importance of neutrals in a branched circuit and is an example of how voltage could be carried on the ground if the neutral and ground bus of a subpanel were bonded. This put on the light bulb over my head on the importance of neutrals