No Vacancy on the Neutral Bar

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A/A Fuel GTX

A/A Fuel GTX

Senior Member
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WI & AZ
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Electrician
Does anyone see a problem with splicing the neutral and ground wires from a circuit together in a main panel and then landing one conductor on the neutral bar instead of landing each conductor individually? I've come across a lot of extremely crowded neutral bars lately.
 
Yes! that doesn't do it for me. most panel manufactures place as many if not more than enough space for all the neutrals and grounds to be landed for the # of circuits allowed in the panel.
 
Two answers:

1) That's what auxiliary grounding busses are sold for.

2) Double up EGC's and land each neutral separately.
 
m73214 said:
Does anyone see a problem with splicing the neutral and ground wires from a circuit together in a main panel and then landing one conductor on the neutral bar instead of landing each conductor individually? I've come across a lot of extremely crowded neutral bars lately.
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I think this would technically be a violation.

If you feel the need to do something like this, splice some ground wires together instead to get more spaces on the neutral bar.

Better yet is the auxiliary ground bar as OP suggested.
 
petersonra said:
Better yet is the auxiliary ground bar as suggested.
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I'll third the recommendation of an auxillary grounding busbar.

If that won't fit, get iWire Bob to follow you around and cad weld them to the panel. :)
 
I think this would technically be a violation.
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I would agree. The connection of the EGC and the neutral can not be beyond the actual neutral bar. You could splice two neutrals together providing that the phase conductors associated with those neutrals were on different phases. A rather lousy solution but code compliant.
 
I agree with you guys on expanding the neutral bar etc. but when you go do a job and the 100A panel is a rats nest and there just isn't any working room in there and the neutral bar terminals are already three and four wires deep, what can you do? I know a service upgrade is the right thing to do but when your main mission is to install a garbage disposal circuit, the homeowner doesn't want to hear that it will cost $1500 to install a new service. In the scenario I described, the jumper between the neutral and ground wire and the neutral bar is just an extension of the neutral bar itself. I don't like doing this either but I don't believe it is posing any great threat on the other hand.
 
m73214 said:
I agree with you guys on expanding the neutral bar etc. but when you go do a job and the 100A panel is a rats nest and there just isn't any working room in there and the neutral bar terminals are already three and four wires deep, what can you do? I know a service upgrade is the right thing to do but when your main mission is to install a garbage disposal circuit, the homeowner doesn't want to hear that it will cost $1500 to install a new service. In the scenario I described, the jumper between the neutral and ground wire and the neutral bar is just an extension of the neutral bar itself. I don't like doing this either but I don't believe it is posing any great threat on the other hand.
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Your risking your license to do work that you know is wrong.Either do your addition to code or pass it up.If the solution is rewire the panel neatly (2 hours tops) then add that to the price and explain to customer the hazard.
 
homeowner doesn't want to hear that it will cost $1500 to install a new service
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Since when would you need to install a new service to take care of a piddly problem like this?

A $15 auxilliary ground bar is the answer.
 
Jim W in Tampa said:
I would never join neutral with ground.First choice is pigtail some grounds.Second is pigtail neutrals being carefull of wire size and phase.
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Jim this part that kinda spook me with this set up and i did see some peoples done this and i have few service call related from that and some netural wires were kinda pretty well overloaded some case it did actally burnted up .

Merci , Marc
 
They should never share same phase.Every case is differant and you need to know when to replace the panel with a larger (not higher amps).Often this is not a big deal or perhaps add a small sub panel next to it.Plenty of fixes for far under $1500
 
If you find a panel that is such a mess that you cannot work in the panel, I agree that explaining to the customer the safety and professional way to work this is to spend a little time cleaning up the panel. With proper selfmarketing (I made up the one word :)), you can do them, yourself and any future electrician a favor. Then you will not be splicing neutrals and EGC together.
 
petersonra said:
Since when would you need to install a new service to take care of a piddly problem like this?

A $15 auxilliary ground bar is the answer.
Click to expand...

I agree. Maybe you have to do a panel change at worst but not a service change. but it seems to me your problem is not circuit space.
 
Thanks for all the comments. I spoke with the homeowner and I'm going to clean up the panel today. I plan on adding an auxiliary neutral bar and some tandem breakers to alleviate the double feeds off of single breakers. It's amazing how some jobs that start out simple and straight forward turn out to be a real can of worms.
 
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