You fail to mention if your service is 240v or 120v.

You know that the #8 should be solid and protected from damage.

The neutral and ground are landed on the same bus at the meter location only

 

Sorry, it's 240v. so I should drive a rod and add a ground buss to the box and separate the neutrals from the grounds? Thanks

 

If there is no disconnect ahead of this panel there is no need to separate the grounds and neutrals. A 3 wire feed would means the trailer panel is your service.

 

I would think there would be adisconnect/panel at the meter, but if not, for sure you need a ground rod. That is your 1st means of disconnect. If there is a disconnect at the meter, you need a ground wire between it and the inside panel isolated from the ground.

 

With out pics it impossible to answer your questions with any certainty.
There is a 1000 different ways to do an electrical service

 

There is, a 100 amp breaker below the meter also a 100 amp breaker in breaker box. Thanks folks!

 

The home panel should be fed with a 4 wire feeder. Is the fed in conduit or a cable?

 

It's underground about a 15ft run but, it's only 3 wire. I believe, it's #2 se cable

 

With a 3 wire feed the house needs to neutral to ground bond installed in the panel.

The SE cable should not have been buried. The trailer needs a grounding system.

 

I have just a three wire feed to my main breaker box in my mobile home from company meter base on power pole.

That became illegal when NEC 2008 was adopted in your state. (2008-2012 time frame).

There is a bare ground wire coming down from top of pole into the ground I assume, it connects to a rod underground.

That ground rod belongs to the power company and grounds out their transformer to dissipate lightning strikes on the pole top wires. I wouldn't use it.

There is no, ground wire coming out of meter base going to a ground rod.

My main/sub panel in my home has no bare ground wire bonded to the box and all, neutral and equipment ground wires are also tied together on the same busbar which has it's jumper connected to the metal box.

So neither the meter-main nor the trailer has a ground rod. Not good at all.

What that ground rod does for you is arrest surges, spikes and lightning, and makes sure that the actual ground around your house stays reasonably near the voltage of neutral. Which in turn means the voltage of your two hot wires are not much more than 120V from neutral. That reduces the severity of shocks and a "hot skin" condition. It also helps GFCIs do a better job protecting you for outdoor activities.

The ground wire back to the meter-main does something else for you. It protects you from a Lost Neutral condition where the neutral wire breaks and suddenly the neutral on your home is not at 0V anymore. If ground is bonded to neutral that creates a "hot skin" condition because chassis voltage is bouncing around with the neutral. With separate neutral and ground, the wires are at least separated so one doesn't cause the other, but it also provides vastly better protection if one breaks and not the other.

I assume, I should remove the buss jumper from the box, mount another ground buss to the metal box and move all the bare grounds to it?

That would be useful if you also did all the modernizations - ground wire to the meter and also ground rod to the earth. Otherwise it could make things worse.

I mean, adding a ground bar and separating all your grounds is GREAT. However, leave a neutral-ground bond here in this panel, until you're able to get both a local grounding rod and a ground wire back to the meter-main. You need a functioning N-G bond that has better than dirt between them.


You need the neutral-ground bond to assure that shorts cause breaker trips. Without the N-G bond, fault current would go down your ground rod, through the dirt, and up the electric company's ground rod back to neutral. That would not flow enough current to trip the breaker, leaving it to burn, arc or whatever it's doing. Meanwhile the ground around your home would be electrified, creating a reverse hot-skin condition!

So you see, the ground rod and ground wire do different jobs.

Should I also drive a ground rod outside and run a # 08 gauge ground wire from the rod to the newly installed ground buss?

You definitely should do that. But you should not remove the neutral-ground bonding if a ground rod is all you have.

The right answer is both a ground rod and a separate ground wire, but the latter is not urgent enough to demand retrofit, as far as NEC is concerned. Still a good thing though.


The usual mobile-home wire is 2-2-2-4 MH feeder, which you note has 4 wires. SE and SER cable are OK outside per Jim Port.

 

So if I understand correctly, I need to drive a ground rod, run a ground wire from rod to a new ground buss which is bonded to breaker box, put all equipment grounds to new bus and then, run another ground wire from new breaker box buss to meter socket?

 

You need the ground rod.

If the installion was pre-NEC 2008, you don't need to separate neutrals and grounds, but you'll be glad you did later!

I'm assuming there is a 100A breaker at the meter box, as that is the usual installation for manufactured homes. If there's no breaker or other disconnecting device there, and the first disconnect is inside your building, then gosh, I believe a 3-wire feed is actually legal today.

If there is a 100A breaker out at the pole, then you are grandfathered because it was pre-NEC-2008, so you don't have to run a separate ground wire if you really don't want to, but it will enhance your safety if you do.

I think after the ice storm we are suppose to get is over, I will get a 5/8"x8ft ground rod a ground buss for my box and some #8 copper ground wire and see what I can get done someone please let me know if I need something else also.

If "ice" is a word frequently used in your area, yeah, I'd wait until the ground unfreezes.

 

I think after the ice storm we are suppose to get is over, I will get a 5/8"x8ft ground rod a ground buss for my box and some #8 copper ground wire and see what I can get done someone please let me know if I need something else also.

 

There is a bare ground wire coming down from top of pole into the ground I assume, it connects to a rod underground.

Usually this wire is coiled on the bottom of the pole or it connects to a copper plate mounted there. You can see such a coil here and although they call it a telephone pole, you can see it's obviously a power company pole.

 

@seharper both SE and SER are both approved for use outside. See your post 11.

 

@Jim Port whoops, yeah, I'm confused, it's not allowed for underground. I tend to assume all manufactured homes are underground from pole to building.