Panel Bonding

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ironphill

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Conroe, TX
OK, I've got a new one. I was wiring a panel a while back and it was a siemens with no ground bar. Instead of going to buy a new ground bar, I put the grounds on the left neutral bar, the neutrals on the right, and even though it probably wasn't necessary, moved the bonding screw to the left side with the grounds and screwed it tight. I also left the copper bar that bonds the 2 neutral bars together in place. Well, an old school electrician was trying to tell me that it was wrong because it was "too good of a bond" between the grounds and neutrals. He said that the only right way to do it was with a ground bar. I'm not trying to slam the dude because he's a good electrician, I just want to make sure I'm not crazy here.
 
from reading your two threads that you have started, I think whoever you are working with is feeding you some bad information on grounding and bonding, there is absolutely nothing wrong with what you just described doing, I have never heard of "too good of a bond" that is just plain stupid talk....:roll:
 
There is something fishy here. If you need a ground bar then this would be a sub panel. If you don't then you don't need the neutral and grounds separated in the panel. What do you have here? :-?
 
Dennis Alwon said:
There is something fishy here. If you need a ground bar then this would be a sub panel. If you don't then you don't need the neutral and grounds separated in the panel. What do you have here? :-?
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I was assuming this was a main panel (I know what happens when you assume:grin: ) but I do pretty much what he is describing when Im using panels with that style of buss bars.
 
Phill, in my opinion, you worked harder than you needed to. There was no reason to run any conductor to the other side of the panel.
 
It was an indoor 200 amp, and I don't know what you mean by running a conductor to the other side of the panel. I moved the bonding screw to the side that I put the grounds on, which didn't make any difference, but I liked it better. And you know what I mean when I'm talking about that copper bar that connects the 2 neutral bars, right? Is there a name for that? And I appreciate all the help guys. I've already passed the journeyman test, I'm just waiting to get the rest of my hours. Should be soon. I just have to contend with some old school ways of thinking every now and then.
 
ironphill said:
It was an indoor 200 amp, and I don't know what you mean by running a conductor to the other side of the panel. I moved the bonding screw to the side that I put the grounds on, which didn't make any difference, but I liked it better. And you know what I mean when I'm talking about that copper bar that connects the 2 neutral bars, right? Is there a name for that? And I appreciate all the help guys. I've already passed the journeyman test, I'm just waiting to get the rest of my hours. Should be soon. I just have to contend with some old school ways of thinking every now and then.
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I do the same, I put all the grounding conductors on one side and the grounded conductors on the other-- I use GE. If it is a sub panel I remove the connecting bar otherwise it stays. I think some of us were thinking you rewired the panel by moving the grounding conductors from one side to the other. This is obviously not necessary on a main panel.
 
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