old house & no ground

[Adam B]

I recognize this is a message board for professionals, but I need some advice after having some questionable electrical work performed.

I have a 70 year old house with an underutilized 100 amp service. Several years ago I had an electrician upgrade and rewire the old cloth wrapped wire from the meter to the main panel. Now I am in the process of installing a subpanel-this is what I unraveled during the installation.

The meter is currently not grounded via a copper grounding rod or water pipe. It does appear to be grounded to the power pole via the solid strand cable anchored to the house which the main feed comes in on.

In the meter, the electrician connected the hot wire to one of the hot lugs, a ground wire to the neutral lug, and a neutral wire to the other hot lug. An unused red wire had been installed to supply 220v at a later time (I am guessing). These all run through PVC conduit to my main panel, which is not grounded with a copper grounding rod or water pipe connection.

In the main panel, the hot wire goes to the breakers, the ground and the "neutral" (which is actually hot) goes to the neutral bar. The red wire is capped off and loose in the box. The hot wire has a jumper that connects both breaker lugs.

While this has been supplying my house for several years now without burning down or electrocuting anyone, it seems to go against everything I know about modern residential wiring. I believe at the meter, the ground should be removed from the neutral lug, the neutral should go back to the neutral lug, and the red wire be connected to the other hot lug. At the panel, the hot jumper should be removed, the red wire should go to the (now unused) other breaker lug and the neutral should go to the neutral bar which is bonded to the panel with a new copper ground rod and water pipe ground. Does this make sense? I want to get a game plan for when the next electrician comes out to fix this mess if it indeed needs fixing-and before the installation of my sub panel.

Thanks in advance-the board has been a great help.

Adam

 

[hurk27]

Re: old house & no ground

Adam
It sounds like its possible that your house is only fed with 120 volts and not 240, This can be determined by looking at the drop from the utility pole to your house. For 240 volt service there should be two insulated wires and a bare wire which is also used to support the drop, If you only have one insulated wire and the bare wire then you only have a 120 volt drop which is most likely the same drop which fed the old original service which is probably two small for what you have now. Now I'm shooting from the hip and not being able to see it, It sounds like there were no inspections done on the service up grade and the drop to the house was never changed? Most likely your best bet would be to get a licensed electrician to look at it and tel you what has to be done to bring it up to par. Then bring this info back here and we can see if it make sense. Photo's also can help to get a better response as to what you need also and can be loaded to a free photo server like www.photobucket.com then use the

which will appear with others below your text box when you go to do another post.

I will say that at the beginning of you post

By Adam: Now I am in the process of installing a subpanel

it sounded like your doing the work which we will not help with as the rules of the forum will not allow but you did state close to the end that sounded like you are going to hire an electrician to do the work?

By Adam: I want to get a game plan for when the next electrician comes out to fix this mess

It does sound like you need a electrician to look at it.

 

[Adam B]

Re: old house & no ground

Yes, I do intend to install the sub panel myself, but I have no intention of messing around with the main feed/meter situation which I hope to understand better.

Looking at the drop, 2 wires come down the rigid anchor cable to the house, but both wires are joined so that a single feed enters the meter. The other feed to the meter is connected to the rigid anchor cable-so it looks like I only have 120v.

That being said, do the connections I explained in the original post make sense and meet code (considering the age of the house/equipment), or should I plan on having an elecrician or the utility install a new meter with proper ground and capability for 240v?

Thanks, I just really like to understand the fundamental concept behind the work to be performed, especially after being possibly burned by an unlicensed contractor. I've learned that lesson!

Adam

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Re: old house & no ground

I'm sorry, but we can't answer DIY questions on this forum, so I am closing the thread.
Don