meternerd
Senior Member
- Location
- Athol, ID
- Occupation
- retired water & electric utility electrician, meter/relay tech
I had a weird one the other day. Still don't feel too good about the fix, but outside of our POCO jurisdiction.
I was called out by the service crew to help try and figure out why the bare wire from the ground rod was arcing to the pedestal (located in a mobile home park). Complaint was flickering lights. We pulled the cover off of the utility pull section and saw that the GEC went directly to the neutral bus, bypassing the cabinet bonding lug. There was no jumper in the breaker section from ground to neutral either. We no longer allow a bonding termination in our sealed section, but since this was a really old installation, I figured we'd let the electrician bond there. It happened just before quitting time, so I had to leave, but the service crew stayed until the electrician finished. With the main breaker off, he read no grounds on either phase and high resistance to the case. After bonding, the arcing stopped. But it seems to me there must be a downstream ground on the neutral for return current to be coming back through ground. Is it safe to leave it this way?
I was called out by the service crew to help try and figure out why the bare wire from the ground rod was arcing to the pedestal (located in a mobile home park). Complaint was flickering lights. We pulled the cover off of the utility pull section and saw that the GEC went directly to the neutral bus, bypassing the cabinet bonding lug. There was no jumper in the breaker section from ground to neutral either. We no longer allow a bonding termination in our sealed section, but since this was a really old installation, I figured we'd let the electrician bond there. It happened just before quitting time, so I had to leave, but the service crew stayed until the electrician finished. With the main breaker off, he read no grounds on either phase and high resistance to the case. After bonding, the arcing stopped. But it seems to me there must be a downstream ground on the neutral for return current to be coming back through ground. Is it safe to leave it this way?