Grounded or grounding conductor?

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mtymartin

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Here's the scenario. "Original"service config is an outdoor meter back to back with indoor panel on a house. We installed new outdoor panel/meter combo, and made indoor old panel a junction box. This house had an older 3 wire Range circuit so we tied a bare ground from main panel, in to the old panel and tied it to the bare wire of the Range circuit
. Of course the jbox is bonded. Question is...we failed inspection because the inspector wanted us to install a "colored white wire" from main panel in to the jbox, and tie it to the bare for the Range circuit. Now, I thought that was a "grounding" conductor since it is a 3 wire circuit?
 
If you are coming from the main panel the code allows seu to be used for the existing 3 wire circuit however if you are not using an seu cable then IMO you must have an insulated neutral.

The bare wire is both a neutral and an equipment grounding conductor
 
If the range needs a neutral then id run a neutral from the main panel to the existing neutral that went to the range.
I think the inspector sees it as the neutral from the new work and isnt concerned about the existing
 
mtymartin said:
we failed inspection because the inspector wanted us to install a "colored white wire" from main panel in to the jbox, and tie it to the bare for the Range circuit. Now, I thought that was a "grounding" conductor since it is a 3 wire circuit?
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Technically the wire running to a range or dryer is the neutral (grounded) conductor. The code used to allow using the neutral conductor as the grounding means for ranges and dryers.

We were never allowed to use a grounding conductor as the neutral.
 
The one possible exception would be a range that does not use a neutral and does not even have a terminal for one (non-US market model?).
In that case I think you could run only two hots and a ground. But that would require using hard wire or an appropriate connector and you would open the customer up to big problems if the range is replaced.
 
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