Updates/Clarified Electrical Question

The Neutral and Ground bus in a subpanel that was installed in a remodel are not connected, however the guy left the bar bolted into the neutral bus and left the other side hanging without a bolt. Basically, he did not bolt the bar down onto the ground bus. When the electrician that I currently have looked at it, he said that it needed to be connected and stated what the correct bolt size for it would be but I cannot remember. It is a subpanel. The main panel with a main breaker sits out in front of my house and the subpanel is inside with all of the individual circuit breakers in it, in additon to the main for that panel. Should it be connected or not?

The old electrician who was a builder/electrician who did the remodel also left notes saying that an future electrician should split the 3 and five wire branch circuits to each leg of the incoming power and panel bus to prevent overload on the neutrals. The new electrician who is a master electrician, head of a local electrical union said that this doens't really make sense. Does it make sense?

I also know that the city likes to have all neutral circuits split up at the device locations and to avoid tying all neutrals together. The new electrician said that this is not really necessary but would do it if I wanted him to. Does this make sense?

Reply to
Michael Roback
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Sub-panels require separate Nuetrals and Grounds! (not connected at the panel either!)

4 Wires to each panel. (2 hots, 1 nuetral, 1 ground)

~kjpro~

Reply to
~KJPRO~

no. neutral and ground should only meet at one location to prevent ground loops. they should be connected at the main panel, the one outside the house. they should not be connected in the subpanel.

i think hes saying that you have two high load items on the same branch of the 220 circuit and is recommending the load would be more balanced if each circuit was on a different leg of the 220. does it make sense? a little. it really would only matter in an extreme situation.

as for the last question, im not sure what the question is.

randy

Reply to
xrongor

What bar are you talking about? The bus is a bar with a lot of holes in it. You should have two of them; one for all the grounds, and one for all the neutrals. They are bolted to the breaker box. I am not sure what you mean when you ask if the bar should be bolted to the bus.

Should what be connected or not? Oh, wait a moment. Are you saying you have a main breaker outside and all the circuits go to the subpanel inside?! If so, it is not really a subpanel. Where do your ground connections (water pipe, grounding rod...) go; to the panel inside or outside?

You shouldn't be able to overload your neutral no matter what you do, unless he used an undersize neutral. However, you really have two electrical services, each with the same capacity. You can overload one while the other is relatively unused; in which case you move some heavy loads from the overloaded side service to the lightly used one. Maybe that is what he meant, but why the heck didn't he just do it?

Each circuit has to have its own neutral; you can't join them before the breaker box. The exception is a multiwire circuit, where two circuits share a neutral. Is that what you are referring to? If so, I have not heard of multiwire circuits being a code violation, but some people dislike them. Done properly they are a bit more efficient than other circuits; done wrong they are a fire hazzard.

Reply to
toller

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