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Service move - old panel, separating neutral and ground

5783 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  HouseHelper
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Apparently the inspector is taking tommorrow and Monday off, so I'm fully ready for inspection and waiting until Tuesday. I figured I'd move the dryer circuit to the new panel while waiting, and noticed something else I need to do.

My project for those not following the saga is that I have a permit pulled to upgrade from 100A service to 200A service and move the service entrance. I have a new 200A panel I installed on a previous permit as a subpanel which will become the main panel. Gradually the plan is to get circuits upgraded and moved to the 200A panel until the old 100A panel doesn't have any live circuits, but for now the 100A panel will act as a subpanel to the 200A panel.

So it occurred to me to check, and sure enough, there isn't a seperate ground bar so the neutral bar also has grounds in it.

It's straightforward enough, but it's a nearly full 100A panel. I counted 6 ground wires on one side and 4 on the other. Seems like there should be more, those numbers include the wire to the ground rod.

So I don't know if I have a specific question, but I'm attaching pictures of the neutral bars on both sides... I guess I'm curious if I'm missing something.

I'll be shutting off the panel, adding a ground bar on both sides and moving ground wires while the kids are away this evening for vacation bible school and the wife is at an exercise class.

The bonding screw will remain in place for now, but anything I might need to know in terms of if there is anything I need to be aware of that isn't obvious would be appreciated. Or if there's anything visible in the photos that needs to be corrected.

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I basicly did the second option, added a ground bar on both sides. As this is still the main panel until next Tuesday at least, I'm keeping the green bonding screw installed, but now when the main panel changes the screw comes out and I have nothing further to do.

That's the easy part. The unknown comes into play because I don't know if there's anything else in this panel that could become an issue. I didn't do most of what is in here. there is an AFCI circuit I had put in for hardwired interconnected smoke detectors. There was a 30A double pole circuit for the dryer, but I moved that to the new panel. And there's the 60A breaker for the new panel while it is used as a sub. Everything else is work done before we bought the house.

Being that it was done without a permit as far as I can tell, I don't know that it is free of code violations and I don't know that any of those code violations might have to be corrected by me as part of the permit which is otherwise unrelated... What complicates it more is that I don't know when the work was done, and what happens if EI decides it should be done to current code... It's mostly 15A circuits, the bathroom has GFCI but none of the old wiring is AFCI. And I am unfamiliar with the multiwire circuits, whoever installed this panel seems to be a big fan of 14-3 wire.

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