Sub Panel Question

[Stephen G Sheldon]

When you observe the neutral and ground connected to the same bus bar how would you suggest writing this up and is it a major safety concern?

[John Arnold]

I'll let someone else make the submarine joke.

Sheldon - Welcome to the board!

Jerry Peck has been beating the rest of us over the head for years about the term "sub panel". This term is not found in the NEC or IRC.

Having said that, assuming you mean a panel that is downstream from the service equipment, yes it's a major safety concern because you can have neutral current on the bare equipment ground conductors.

There are any number of ways to write it up. It's improper and dangerous and a qualified electrician needs to fix it.

[bruce m graham III]

check this out http://www.mikeholt.com/multimedia/NEC2002/408/408-21-Corp-LAN-smooth.ram

[Scott Patterson]

When you observe the neutral and ground connected to the same bus bar how would you suggest writing this up and is it a major safety concern?

I would not call it a "Major" safety concern, but then I don't like the the 3M terms Major, Minor and Monitor!

Simply report that that the panel is not wired properly and state why.

[Jerry Peck]

check this out http://www.mikeholt.com/multimedia/NEC2002/408/408-21-Corp-LAN-smooth.ram

Bruce,

The guy in the dark shirt who asked Mike the question about splitting a larger #8 conductor up into two terminals is Tarry Baker, Broward County Board of Rules and Appeals, Chief Electrical Code Compliance Official. In his office there are two chairs on the other side of his desk, and many HIs down there joked that one chair had my name on it - because I was there so often discussing things with Tarry.

By the way, Tarry knew the answer to that question, but he did what I do quite often - ask the question and get the answer ... for the record. He probably got tired of being asked that by electrical contractors or inspectors, now it is on "the record" with Mike Holt. By the way, Mike is also originally from down there, that is where he had is electrical contracting business before he went into his code stuff.

I was, however, very surprised to hear that Mike was not aware of, and did not know, that only one neutral was allowed under one neutral terminal. Just goes to show that we all learn something new all the time. I learned a lot from both Mike and Tarry.