That about sums that up. After all the discussion here about how to do it right, this is how it winds up. It's a clear and major code violation to be using the conduit as the neutral, surprising a licensed electrician would ever do it.
It is bad enough to use conduit as a ground, but crazy to use it for the neutral.
Not sure who to report the contractor to,but I think I would try to find someone to report that to. Maybe get a building inspector out to look at it.
It sounds like a fellow I worked with. He got his electrical license on the third try to do some work to make extra money . From some of the stuff he tells on himself, I would not let him change a battery in a one cell flashlight. He always complains on how the inspector is always turning his word down.
I doubt it really uses the neutral so you are probably good to go. It should still be a 3 wire receptacle tho.
If an inspector looks at it he will fail it because of the neutral. A am still not sure a Tesla Charger really needs a neutral tho. The ones I looked at were pure 240v loads. I would look into that before I did anything else. Then just find the appropriate 3 wire receptacle. (6-50r or 10-50r)
Presuming the conduit is actually tied to a real ground...
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It should be easy to find where it's bonded. Or not.
Fon't know about where the OP is, but up here in Ontario the conduit can NOT be used as the neutral and in many cases cannot be used as the "safety ground" either.
Follow UP: I went over and inspected what the contractor had done, what I found was that they installed a "NEMA 6-50" outlet that only has two hots and a neutral, and the neutral was terminated at a ground block in the receptacle box. So: 1/2" Conduit w/2 #6 wires and the ground from the 6-50 terminated in the receptacle box.
I figure Its on the edge of the building code, but probably not unsafe ? Thanks Sid.
So the neutral isn't actually connected to the 3rd prong of the receptacle?
Legal but not desirable. You can use the conduit for ground if everything is made up properly but a #10 grounding conductor would have been better. There is still no neutral present. If you need that, this is not going to be legal.
My Bad, I stated it wrong, NO Neutral, just the ground terminated in the receptacle box ! (plug has 3 wires) Should I leave it or have it changed ? (If it is to be changed, this would be the time, because I want to finish the walls in the garage.)
The Contractor stated that he wanted to use 1/2" conduit because he couldn't get 3/4" to bend around the corner w/o showing. I figure there are ways of doing it, you just need to think outside the box ?! Can't just run your conduit bend down into the corner and then another bend down into the other wall so that you get a 90 and no part of the radius showing ? May look a little crazy, but seems like it would work on paper ?!
Thanks
Yours is actually a fairly elegant geometric solution if you don't end up with too many bends (360 degrees total). It is likely your car charger is just a line to line load (240 only) and if that is true, what you have, works. If you want a belt and suspenders approach to your ground you could get some green #10 solid and tywrap it to the outside of the conduit and tie the boxes together. HD/Lowes sells it by the foot. It is sort of legal since the conductors are all run together and physical damage potential inside a wall is minimal.
Before I closed up the wall I would verify what type of plugs are available on the charger.
Since when is it code compliant to use the ground at a receptacle for the neutral?
. You can use the conduit for ground if
I guess you missed the part where he said the neutral is tied to the ground at the receptacle. The conduit is not only the ground, it's the neutral too.
Big difference. Then what you have is code compliant.
I was referring to using the raceway as the grounding conductor.
A 6-50 only has 2 ungrounded conductors and an equipment grounding conductor. There was never a legal 6-50 using the neutral as a ground. It was common on the 14-50 before the 96 code change.
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