add neutral bus

[limeport]

I have a GE panel It has room for more circuit breakers than grounding points on the neutral bus. There is room for adding neutral bus below existing bus. Can I do that? If so how do I bond one bus to another? Ed

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[HeyBub]

Yeah. You can buy a neutral bus extension at your local electrical supplier. Should be less than $10.00.

[John Grabowski]

*Check the label inside of your panel. Usually the neutral/ground bar is approved to have multiple ground wires under one screw. By combining several ground wires under one screw you may be able to free up some slots for additional circuits. The neutral wires can only be one per screw.

The alternative is to add a ground bar. By screwing it directly to the panel using threaded machine screws it will be grounded and you can swing all of your ground wires over to it. Keep the neutral wires on the existing bar.

Sometimes the panel label has a part number to order an additional ground or neutral bar for the panel. Check to see if GE has provided a part number and you can go to an electrical supply company to buy one. Also Lowes is a GE distributor and they may have approved parts for expansion.

[Joe]

There will be oversized holes in the new and old buses for bonding with #4 copper or whatever your building code requires. Joe

[gfretwell]

If you are just connecting ground wires you can just screw it to the can in the holes meant for the purpose. Swap them around to make this true. It gets more complicated if you are attaching neutral wires, depending if this is the main or a sub panel.