2 Breaker Box Questions 240v???

[lschiavo]

Hey guys,
Thanks for you help as usual. I plan on climbing up and crawling all the way to the opposite side of the house and checking this out sometime this weekend. It is so hard to get back there. I am actually half afraid of what I might find. As far as the house goes the main house panel is not up to code either. The inspector told me it would have to be moved to an exterior wall and out of my master bedroom closet. It also needs to be replaced because it does not have a main breaker to kill "all circuits" which is a no-no too. And, code requires it to have "X" amount of space around it. So theoretically I can't hang cloths around it or use half of the closet. Yeah right...
Anyway, I really don't know if I can afford all of that at the moment. (maybe income tax)... I really just want to make beer again.

PS... Oh and I already found a splice job in the attic for the exhaust vent over the stove. My thought was to fix with a junction box. I am not sure how much slack I will have for this type of repair though. I am afraid I might find more the deeper I dig, like the new fans in the two bathrooms I noticed???

Thanks again,
Matt...

It sounds like you have some electrical upgrades in your future. Not having a service disconnect for your house panel is not a good sign. Unfortunately, if you're seeing other sketchy wiring about, you'll probably find more.

I would plan for upgrades when money allows. Don't let it stop you from brewing though. Build your brewery well and plug it into your shop panel with a gfci in between. The brewery won't need to be changed when the wiring gets updated. A three wire feed doesn't meet today's code but if you do things right, it doesn't spell instant death.

 

[mpmccann]

Hi guys, I took some more Pic’s for all you voyeurs.
These are mostly pics of the inside house panel so you can see that aspect as well.
1. The panel inside the house looks newer then 1979 but I could be wrong, seems like it would have a main breaker but as you can see from the pic’s it does not.
2. The shop is fed with a 100a circuit breaker from the house panel. The feed runs to the small box w/ another 100a breaker outside as a service shutoff then about a 100’ run to the building.
3. I do not see any evidence of a grounding rod or any external grounding anywhere around the meter or box outside.
4. At least we know now that the house panel does feed the sub panel in the shop. The issue seems to be that it is a 3-wire feed with no isolated earth ground. (See 2 above).
Couple of questions:
1. With the setup in the shop being 3 wire, and the 50a receptacle being an old 3 prong slant dryer type connection, will a spa panel or an inline GFCI even be an option? I don’t want to spend money on a spa panel and just have it trip as soon as I apply power to it. Or worse yet, not protect the circuit and me… But I need GFCI protection
2. Can I try to earth ground the breaker box in the shop and isolate the common and earth ground with a ground bus addition, since it is a sub panel, right?
3. If so, I would assume a spa panel would be treated in the same manner, correct?
I can’t think of anything else right now so here are the pics…

 

[mpmccann]

PS... I also have these pics too. but I guess there is a limit to how much you can up load at a time. (Keep Getting errors)

 

[ajdelange]

3. I do not see any evidence of a grounding rod or any external grounding anywhere around the meter or box outside.

Just to the right of the lug for the neutral at the bottom of the main panel there is a smaller lug which I would guess is for the earth/ground. It perhaps goes to a rod driven into basement soil or perhaps to a water pipe. I'd check that out before concluding that there is no grounding system. There definitely ought to be one.

4. At least we know now that the house panel does feed the sub panel in the shop. The issue seems to be that it is a 3-wire feed with no isolated earth ground.

Yes. To feed the shop properly you need to run 3/3 from this panel to the shop panel.

1. With the setup in the shop being 3 wire, and the 50a receptacle being an old 3 prong slant dryer type connection, will a spa panel or an inline GFCI even be an option? I don’t want to spend money on a spa panel and just have it trip as soon as I apply power to it. Or worse yet, not protect the circuit and me… But I need GFCI protection

All GFCI does is make sure that the sum of the currents flowing in the two hots and the neutral is 0 which means that all current being delivered to a device is returned to the source through one of those three. If any current returns through any other path (such as you) the breaker will open.

2. Can I try to earth ground the breaker box in the shop and isolate the common and earth ground with a ground bus addition, since it is a sub panel, right?

Yes but what will you connect that bus to? It should be connected to the ground wire in the same panel. If that wire goes to a water pipe and the all the water pipes in your house are metallic and there is a water pipe in your shop then I suppose you could connect it to that.

 

[mpmccann]

Yes but what will connect that bus to. It should be connected to the ground wire in the same panel. If that wire goes to a water pipe and the all the water pipes in your house are metallic and there is a water pipe in your shop then I suppose you could connect it to that.

No water pipes in the shop.
I was thinking of an 8' grounding rod outside the shop running to the added bus and bus being mounted to the shop metal box. ???
Essentially grounding the box and all bare copper wires in it to earth ground and the commons would be isolated right?
See at the moment I only have one bus in the shop box with both common and bare wire hooked to it. I want to separate those and earth ground the bare wires, correct ?
Matt...

 

[mpmccann]

Just to the right of the lug for the neutral at the bottom of the main panel there is a smaller lug which I would guess is for the earth/ground. It perhaps goes to a rod driven into basement soil or perhaps to a water pipe. I'd check that out before concluding that there is no grounding system. There definitely ought to be one.

I wasn't concluding that there was no grounding system, simply pointing out it must be grounded somewhere. Maybe to the meter or pipes. Also no basement here in Texas. We just don't have them here.
I was hoping someone could reassure me the same assumption from the pics
of the breaker box in the house.
Thanks,
Matt...

 

[mpmccann]

Yes. To feed the shop properly you need to run 3/3 from this panel to the shop panel.

Forgive me but what is 3/3 wire? I always get confused here. Is that electrician's lingo for 4 wires?
Matt...

 

[ajdelange]

No water pipes in the shop.
I was thinking of an 8' grounding rod outside the shop running to the added bus and bus being mounted to the shop metal box. ???
Essentially grounding the box and all bare copper wires in it to earth ground and the commons would be isolated right?
See at the moment I only have one bus in the shop box with both common and bare wire hooked to it. I want to separate those and earth ground the bare wires, correct ?
Matt...

I think that would be better than what you have. I'm not sure it meets code but I think you could argue that it is better than code as the ground potential under your feet when you are in the shop is more relevant to your safety than the ground potential under your house. I know that grounding when multiple buildings are involved is pretty tricky and I'm not sure that even the latest edition of the NEC reflects the best thinking on this subject.

 

[ajdelange]

Forgive me but what is 3/3 wire? I always get confused here. Is that electrician's lingo for 4 wires?
Matt...

Yes. That would be three insulated wires of #3 AWG and a bare ground wire.

 

[lschiavo]

I remember way back, some power companies wanted the grounding done in the meter socket it is possible that is how yours is done. I do not see a wire leaving your house panel that looks like it would head to ground rods or water piping.


I do see that it looks like no conduit is leaving the top of the panel for the incoming service conductors or the shop feed. I would assume then that those conductors are loose or maybe stapled up in your attic. That was never the proper way to do that. I'm really not sure how that service ever passed an inspection. Maybe it wasn't required in your area at the time.


A GFCI will function connected to your shop panel as is.

 

[MT2sum]

I may have missed something in one of the posts, and an electrician MAY correct my assumption, BUT, if there is a ground bar on the main house panel, and there are 4 wires (red, black, white, and bare) running to the garage, it seems to me that IF the bare ground and the white common are connected to the same bar in the garage (but on separate bars in the main/house panel), all you need to do is mount the bare ground to a separate ground bar (available at Lowes or Home Depot for about $3 - $4) if there isn't one in there already! As well, you should/could go to Lowes/HD for a length of bare #8 or #6 wire and a 6' ground rod w/grounding lug, (previously mentioned by another poster), drive that into the ground next to the building, attach the ground wire to that, run it into the garage and attach it to the ground bar you have just installed or used, in the sub-panel and you will have a ground! Just make sure that no commons are attached to the ground bar and I think you will be golden!
My understanding is that you can drive in a ground rod anywhere you want to as long as it is attached to the ground lug in the box. That's the way a master electrician did my cabin in Tennessee - and it was off a sub-panel of a sub-panel at the main house! The grounding for the house now has three separate ground rods, hooked into the same system, the same ground from the street! I'd say he's a firm believer in grounding every panel, and two of them were outside, one to the well-house, and one to the cabin!
The one thing that is necessary for you to make sure of is that there are 4 (count 'em FOUR) separate wires (red, black, white, and bare as noted above) running from the main to the garage (and any sub-panels in-between!) - and NO white/common wires connected to the ground bar! NOTE: this is just my opinion, as an ex appliance repairman who's had to go into a lot of customers' mains and sub-panels to diagnose problems/ailments. Of course, I wasn't licensed to make the electrical changes in the box, but the electricians always did what I opined they would need to do when/if the job was done correctly - signed off and finished! As may have been mentioned earlier; in the past, different areas may have had different electrical codes at one time or another, but today, most jurisdictions all subscribe to the same electrical codes, so if yours was wired to a previous code which won't pass muster nowadays, for the sake of your family and your insurance premiums, make sure you are up-to-date before a tragedy strikes! An electrician's inspection should have come with your home-owner's policy when you bought the place - my mortgage company required it when I bought a house in Arizona about 20 years back!!

 

[itsnotrequired]

I think that would be better than what you have. I'm not sure it meets code but I think you could argue that it is better than code as the ground potential under your feet when you are in the shop is more relevant to your safety than the ground potential under your house. I know that grounding when multiple buildings are involved is pretty tricky and I'm not sure that even the latest edition of the NEC reflects the best thinking on this subject.

an isolated ground rod out at the shop that isn't solidly tied back to the service entrance is going to do just about nothing for safety. i think the nec is a little silly when it comes to re-establishing a grounding electrode/conductor system at remote buildings with subpanels but that is just a supplement to the solidly connect equipment grounding conductor that needs to be there with the feeder to the remote building. it is all about getting a low-resistance path back to the source (utility transformer) to ensure proper operation of breakers/fuses.

 

[ajdelange]

I may have missed something in one of the posts, and an electrician MAY correct my assumption, BUT, if there is a ground bar on the main house panel, and there are 4 wires (red, black, white, and bare) running to the garage, it seems to me that IF the bare ground and the white common are connected to the same bar in the garage (but on separate bars in the main/house panel), all you need to do is mount the bare ground to a separate ground bar (available at Lowes or Home Depot for about $3 - $4) if there isn't one in there already!

As has been noted in earlier posts that would get him into compliance.

As well, you should/could go to Lowes/HD for a length of bare #8 or #6 wire and a 6' ground rod w/grounding lug, (previously mentioned by another poster), drive that into the ground next to the building, attach the ground wire to that, run it into the garage and attach it to the ground bar you have just installed or used, in the sub-panel and you will have a ground!

As noted in my earlier post that would not get him into compliance but would probably be better from the safety point of view than what he has.

My understanding is that you can drive in a ground rod anywhere you want to as long as it is attached to the ground lug in the box. That's the way a master electrician did my cabin in Tennessee - and it was off a sub-panel of a sub-panel at the main house! The grounding for the house now has three separate ground rods, hooked into the same system, the same ground from the street! I'd say he's a firm believer in grounding every panel, and two of them were outside, one to the well-house, and one to the cabin!

The neutral must be connected to the ground system at the service entrance and only there. Now what the ground system is can vary. It can be an array of rods tied together or a grid of pipes or a wire loop buried in a trench that runs around the house. It must have an impedance of < 25&#937; to earth. There may be other requirements that I am not aware of. What I am not clear on is what the code requires for an out building. If it a building where live stock is kept there must be a ground plane under that building and it must be grounded tied to earth there and, I think, tied to the main building grounding system too but here is where I am not clear.

 

[itsnotrequired]

What I am not clear on is what the code requires for an out building. If it a building where live stock is kept there must be a ground plane under that building and it must be grounded tied to earth there and, I think, tied to the main building grounding system too but here is where I am not clear.

this sounds like canadian electrical code talk.

but you are correct, canada only requires a grounding electrode/conductor system at an out-building if it has livestock. the idea is to protect living things from voltage gradients and other weirdo events, mainly due to lightning strikes. if it is a workshop or similar, not required but in either case, you would need to run an equipment grounding conductor with the feeder out to the remote building sub and tie all the branch circuit ground together in the outbuilding, just like you would do in the main building. this is to ensure proper operation of breakers/fuses in the event of a short circuit. and of course, neutral not bonded to ground at the outbuilding.

here in the states, remote buildings with subpanels need to re-establish a grounding electrode/conductor system at the outbuilding. this means ground rods, plates, tying to metal water pipe if it is out there, etc. doesn't mater if it is a barn, garage, workshop, etc. overkill in my opinion for non-animal related purposes but the code is what the code is...

 

[ajdelange]

an isolated ground rod out at the shop that isn't solidly tied back to the service entrance is going to do just about nothing for safety. i think the nec is a little silly when it comes to re-establishing a grounding electrode/conductor system at remote buildings with subpanels but that is just a supplement to the solidly connect equipment grounding conductor that needs to be there with the feeder to the remote building. it is all about getting a low-resistance path back to the source (utility transformer) to ensure proper operation of breakers/fuses.

Actually what it is all about is having any conducting parts tied to the building's protective ground wires close to the potential of the surface on which people or animals are standing. The function of the protective ground wire is to protect - not carry fault current. It is the function of the grounding system at the service entrance to present an impedance low enough to ground to cause the breakers to trip if there is a ground fault on a branch circuit. Thus the wire from the ground rod to the panel needs to be sized to carry fault current - not the protective ground (bare wires) in the branch circuit cables.

If you have a remote building and run the proper 4-wire feed to it tying the protective ground to the ground system in the main house then everything plugged into that panel will be at the potential of the ground rod at the main house. If there is a lightening strike near the main house current will be injected into the ground there and, as grounding systems have finite impedance, the potential of the ground where the rod is driven as will the potential of things connected to the house protective ground system will rise. Someone touching the panel in the main building wouldn't notice anything because the potential of the ground and the protective ground wire both rise together.

Now lets move to an outbuilding a good distance away from the current injection point. The potential of the ground there is much closer to normal so that metallic objects connected to the rod at the service entrance which is at the higher potential of the injection area are at higher the potential than the local ground and shock hazard exists. The obvious fix is to augment the ground system locally by adding another rod(s) at the outbuilding and tie it to the grounding system of the rest of the premises by connecting to the protective ground bus in the local panel. Metallic components of things connected to that panel will then be at potential close to that of the local ground and safety will be enhanced. Note that if one does this some of the current from the strike will be conducted by the protective ground wire in the feeder to the rod in the remote building and be injected into the ground by the extra rod which has been installed there. This raises the potential of the local floor, of course, but as all the metallic equipment there is at this same potential we are still safe.

Doing this right is very important to cattlemen and dairy operators as it has been shown that the tingle livestock get from improper grounding of, for example, milking machines, causes appreciable loss in revenue.

 

[ajdelange]

this sounds like canadian electrical code talk.

No, US, Art. 547

here in the states, remote buildings with subpanels need to re-establish a grounding electrode/conductor system at the outbuilding. this means ground rods, plates, tying to metal water pipe if it is out there, etc. doesn't mater if it is a barn, garage, workshop, etc. overkill in my opinion for non-animal related purposes but the code is what the code is...

Makes perfect sense to me for reasons explained in my last post. Put another way ground potential varies appreciably spatially. You want your protective ground tracking the ground you are standing on, not the ground somewhere else. Happen to have the relevant Art. no. handy?

 

[itsnotrequired]

well i'll be, never looked at 547 before (not in the livestock industry myself). 547 imposes even more requirements on grounding at agricultural buildings be creation of an equipotential plane. that building still needs to meet the applicable requirements of 250.32 to establish a grounding electrode system. it is my understanding in the canadian code if there is not likestock in the outbuilding with a subpanel served by a feeder, there is no need to drive ground rods, etc. at the outbuilding. is my understanding correct?

the point i was trying to make with all of this is that if there is not an equipment grounding conductor run to the outbuilding with the feeder, driving a ground rod at the outbuilding is not going to do anything to help protect against short circuits. there is a mindset among the layperson that 'short circuits are trying to get to ground' and having a local ground connection makes it 'safe'. short circuits are trying to get back to the source, not 'ground'. if there is not a low-impedance path back to the source, that breaker/fuse won't operate properly, a very dangerous situation.

and yes, the ground rod would help against any stray voltage concerns, even without an equipment grounding conductor out to the building. but i'd be less concerned with situations during lighting strikes and other rare events, being far more concerned with circuit breakes not operating if i touch a live wire. just don't want folks getting lulled into a safe sense of security, by believing a ground rod is a safe alternative to proper equipment grounding conductors.

 

[MT2sum]

Well, it sounds like you two guys have all the relevant code books, etc., and the knowledge/experience to back you up, so with what little I might have helped, I'm outta here! I've gone just about as far as I can with my experience/knowledge from what I've learned over the past 50 or so years!

I hope the OP "gets 'er done" and has no further problems, and, IF there was no electrical inspection prior to the sale of the home, I hope he takes that to heart and is willing to spend up to a couple of hundred bucks or so for a certified electrician to come out and inspect the whole electrical system. Just my 2 cents worth .....