woody75
Member
- Location
- Chicago, IL, USA
This question is about shared and parallel neutrals in branch circuits.
I was asked to instal some equipment at my jobsite, but the nearest 120/208 panel was full.* I told the facilities engineer that many of the circuits fed an office, one circuit per desk from back when they had big CAD computers, and many could be recircuited and combined. He said he'd have their maintenence department do it. They did it and i have a hard time accepting what they did.* I need help finding the actual broken codes. I have taken pride in my work and trade for so long that I sometimes forget that quality and craftsmanship isn't always the minimum coded requirement.
What they did was take circuits 1,3, 5, and 7 and spliced them all together with a wirenut in the panel and fed it with the breaker from cir. 1.* So network 1,3,5 (shared neutral and ground) became and joined the A phase (cir 7) of network 7,9,11 (shared neutral and ground.)** Now out in the field, there are 3 circuits (1, 9, 11) sharing 2 parallel neutrals and grounds back to the panel.
So much of what they did seems like butchery to me, but the only actual code violation i could find was about mis-labeled grounded conductors that they never changed.
Out of pride in my work, I almost never:
-split a neutral-sharing network with nonsequential circuits
-use red and blue wires as A phase out of a panel (home runs)
-use wirenuts in a panel or use it as a junction box at all
-walk away without updating labels on devices, wires, and panel schedule
-parallel neutrals or grounds
But again, I can't find a code to REQUIRE any of these with the exception of identifying a grounded conductor to its protected circuit. All of the parallel code applies to feeders, not explicitly to branch circuits.
Thanks for your time.
I was asked to instal some equipment at my jobsite, but the nearest 120/208 panel was full.* I told the facilities engineer that many of the circuits fed an office, one circuit per desk from back when they had big CAD computers, and many could be recircuited and combined. He said he'd have their maintenence department do it. They did it and i have a hard time accepting what they did.* I need help finding the actual broken codes. I have taken pride in my work and trade for so long that I sometimes forget that quality and craftsmanship isn't always the minimum coded requirement.
What they did was take circuits 1,3, 5, and 7 and spliced them all together with a wirenut in the panel and fed it with the breaker from cir. 1.* So network 1,3,5 (shared neutral and ground) became and joined the A phase (cir 7) of network 7,9,11 (shared neutral and ground.)** Now out in the field, there are 3 circuits (1, 9, 11) sharing 2 parallel neutrals and grounds back to the panel.
So much of what they did seems like butchery to me, but the only actual code violation i could find was about mis-labeled grounded conductors that they never changed.
Out of pride in my work, I almost never:
-split a neutral-sharing network with nonsequential circuits
-use red and blue wires as A phase out of a panel (home runs)
-use wirenuts in a panel or use it as a junction box at all
-walk away without updating labels on devices, wires, and panel schedule
-parallel neutrals or grounds
But again, I can't find a code to REQUIRE any of these with the exception of identifying a grounded conductor to its protected circuit. All of the parallel code applies to feeders, not explicitly to branch circuits.
Thanks for your time.