Thread: Electrical Panel

The electrical panel has a 200 amp main disconnect panel outside so shouldn’t the grounds and neutrals be separated in basement panel? Is the service panel in the house technically considered a sub panel? Also is the bend radius in the 4/0 wire okay? I also thought the panel was somewhat small for 200 amps.
Thanks in advance for any help
John

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The 200 ampere disconnect outside is the first servcie disconnecting means, Thus it is the service equipment. Yes the Grounding and grounded conductors in this disconnect should be bonded together here.

In the interior panel the grounded and grounding shall be separated.
The grounded ( neutral) conductors should be on a terminal bar that is isolated from the panel enclosure.

The grounding ( ground) conductors should be on a terminal bar that is bonded to the panels enclosure either by a properly sizd bonding jumper or directly mounting the bar to the enclosure.

Yes the interior panel is a sub-panel or remote panel.

That thing has "home done" written all over it....

I particularly like the romex cord/plug into an adapter into an outlet next to the panel. That's always a sign of good craftsmanship

Originally Posted by John Callan

Is the service panel in the house technically considered a sub panel?

John,

Speaking of technically ... no, that is not a "sub panel" in the basement as there are only "panels" and "service equipment".

Thus, as Ken said, the "service equipment" is outside at that first main service disconnect, all other panels after that are simply "panelboards", or, for short, simply "panels" (or "remote panels", i.e., "panels" which are "remote" from the service equipment).

And, yes, you are allowed to have a panel main for a panel, in fact (in my opinion) doing so provides an additional level of safety as it provides one the ability to shut the panel down with one breaker - this is not required, however.

"Also is the bend radius in the 2/0 wire okay."

Nope. Too sharply bent. The radius of the bend should be a minimum of 4 times the diameter of the conductor, that is a little over 9/16" in diameter, almost 5/8" in diameter. For 5/8" diameter conductor the minimum bending radius is 4 times that or 20/8" or 2-1/2" radius for a diameter of 5". That circle is definitely not 5" inside diameter.

I can't tell from the photo, even zoomed in, if that neutral terminal bar is isolated from the enclosure. If it is, then the grounds need to be relocated to a ground terminal bar which is properly added and the neutral terminal bar needs to be isolated from the enclosure by the removal of any bonding screws or straps (which I can't see in the photo).

On the left side next to the conductors running up along the side, to the left of the bottom of the disconnect, are what look like the raised dimples that a grounding terminal bar would be mounted to.

Originally Posted by Matt Fellman

That thing has "home done" written all over it....

I particularly like the romex cord/plug into an adapter into an outlet next to the panel. That's always a sign of good craftsmanship

ahhhh come on Jerry ! They went as far as to use some nice electrical tape to cover the conductors that became exposed when they stripped off too much insulation