Separating neutral and grounds in a secondary panel

[Sam Morris]

Inspecting house today built in 1978. The secondary panel had what I thought was stranded copper and stranded aluminum ground wires coming from the HVAC units connect to the neutral bus bar. Am I correct by saying these are ground wires and they should be on the ground bus bar ??http://www.inspectionnews.net/home_inspection/attachment.php?attachmentid=34000&stc=1http://www.inspectionnews.net/home_inspection/attachment.php?attachmentid=34001&stc=1http://www.inspectionnews.net/home_inspection/attachment.php?attachmentid=34003&stc=1

[Trent Tarter]

Yes those ground wires and should be connected to the grounding bus bar. The bigger concern is that it's a Zinsco panel or panel that uses Zinsco breakers.

[Jerry Peck]

Also ... see all those unused terminal holes in the neutral terminal bar?

Yeah, there should only be ONE neutral wire in each terminal hole under each screw (one conductor in one hole under one screw).

That's in addition to what has been previously pointed out.

[Elizabeth Chambers]

Yes those ground wires and should be connected to the grounding bus bar. The bigger concern is that it's a Zinsco panel or panel that uses Zinsco breakers.

Go to inspectapedia.com and do a search for Zinsco panels, they are known fire hazards.

[Bill Kriegh]

The picture is a bit confusing. How many A/C units are present? The panel looks like it has 4 30 AMP circuits (the green breaker handles) and possibly a range/oven circuit and "maybe" a cook top circuit. I'd expect the 30 AMP circuits to be for a dryer and A/C circuits, and the larger cables for cooking equipment.

IF that is in fact what is present the bare wires may actually used as a neutral instead of a ground, but serving both purposes at the appliance (permitted under old codes). The problem now becomes that that was only permitted at the first panel, and only if it had a service disconnect (main breaker). If this was originally a sub (underwater, secondary, non service equipment) panel the cables should have been 4 wire from the git-go.

I have seen installations where a local AHJ would let something like this go provided the bare conductors were insulated so that the couldn't touch the grounded box and put current on the grounding conductor to the main panel, but this is an uncommon situation and what was OK locally would need to be researched.

[Jerry Peck]

The picture is a bit confusing.

There are four conductors as feeders to that oanel: 2 ungrounded; 1 grounded; and 1 grounding (which is white and should be green or bare, shouldn't be white).

There are two black breakers at the top which appear large enough (the photo is not in good enough focus to be able to zoom in see things clearly) for an oven and cooktop

That leaves 4-30 amp circuits (green breakers) ... provided there are tie-bars between each set of 2-adjacent 30 amp breakers.

Which could be:
- water heater
- air conditioning air handler (inside unit)
- air conditioning condenser (outside unit)
- pool/well/shop/???