Neutrals and grounds doubled up on bus bar. Home Inspection
- Thread starter Stevenfyeager
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James L
Senior Member
- Location
- Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
- Occupation
- Electrician
Or even triple up EGCs
Sometimes it's still not enough
- Location
- Bremerton, Washington
- Occupation
- Master Electrician
It was a UL requirement before it was added to NEC in 2002. Is there a label in the panel with instructions?
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I don’t care where you‘re from, that’s funny, and we’ve all been there Bro!.
romex jockey
Senior Member
- Location
- Vermont
- Occupation
- electrician
informative thread w/info i did not know fellas!
~RJ~
~RJ~
Stevenfyeager
Senior Member
- Location
- United States, Indiana
- Occupation
- electrical contractor
Actually, I forgot, the inspector told me I just have to separate the grounds and neutrals, but ok to have two neutrals in each hole. sorry.
- Location
- Tennessee NEC:2017
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrician
Are you sure he didn't say two grounds in the same hole? If he actually said neutrals, then he is wrong!
romex jockey
Senior Member
- Location
- Vermont
- Occupation
- electrician
My Q is, are we supposed to be fixin' these older panels now?
~RJ~
~RJ~
James L
Senior Member
- Location
- Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
- Occupation
- Electrician
If we're working in the panel, I'd say yes.
One municipality I work in says yes, even if I don't do anything else in th e panel. It's SOP they inspect neutral bars.
Fred B
Senior Member
- Location
- Upstate, NY
- Occupation
- Electrician
In my area we are, in addition whenever installing either a new meter/service disconnect or an ATS the bond must be seperated. If you touch it, you own it. And YES in agreement to @Little Bill statement regarding multiple taps under one screw on neutral/ground bar, it's a no go.
flashlight
Senior Member
- Location
- NY, NY
- Occupation
- Electrician, semi-retired
That happened to me once, at a job at a design agency. Work had to be done at night, and there were some circuits we weren't allowed to kill.
One neutral on a MWBC got loose, and I think it was a TV or monitor that got fried. We worked it out with customer who just seemed to take it in stride.
Big lesson learned, and could have been much worse.
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
One of our guys did that years ago, he was cleaning up a 277/480 volt lighting panel. The project manger called me to investigate why around 150 ballasts suddenly went out. After interviewing the foreman, I knew exactly what he done.
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
It is an easy find for the home inspectors, but the flying splice in the attic they miss! LOL!
flashlight
Senior Member
- Location
- NY, NY
- Occupation
- Electrician, semi-retired
They would miss flying monkeys in attic !
Stevenfyeager
Senior Member
- Location
- United States, Indiana
- Occupation
- electrical contractor
Home Inspection report:
"Noted ground wire and neutral wire under same bonding screw. This is not proper. Recommend licensed electrician
evaluate for repair."
"Noted ground wire and neutral wire under same bonding screw. This is not proper. Recommend licensed electrician
evaluate for repair."
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
Note it says to have electrician evaluate for repair and not must be repaired.
It was mentioned here that this wasn't always in the code but was in the equipment instructions for some time, therefore it probably was always wrong.
Stevenfyeager
Senior Member
- Location
- United States, Indiana
- Occupation
- electrical contractor
I've checked with two neighboring city elec inspectors about this, they both said I need to separate neutrals and grounds but ok to leave 2 neutrals and under one screw. ( For Home Inspection jobs)
- Location
- Tennessee NEC:2017
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrician
Your inspectors missed the day they taught panel grounding/bonding!
It would make more sense to leave one EGC and one neutral under one screw than it would to have two neutrals under one screw. You could run into the same situation you would have taking the neutral off a MWBC if you had to remove one of the neutrals for some reason and the other neutral was part of a MWBC. Or you kill power to a regular circuit from loosening the screw, or cause arcing at the least.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
I used to put the N and G from same cable in the same terminal (at service panels), the logic being you probably would have the associated ungrounded conductor(s) off if you were loosening the neutral. Then came the NEC enforcement of one grounded conductor per terminal. After that I went with two EGC's per terminal and one grounded conductor per terminal. Usually the EGC's are associated with the two adjacent grounded conductors.
Then came plug on neutrals for GFCI/AFCI and not many neutral conductors even land directly to the bus bar anymore on especially new residential installations
What`s odd I could not find this in the 2020 code why I have no Idea keep it clean . Kudos for remembering this , I`m find out what year they deleted this .
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