zeeland49464
New member
The subpanel in our basement (the main panel is in the garage back to back with the meter, and has only the main breakers and a breaker for the garage circuit) is an older CH model, probably original to the 30-yr.-old house. It's a 20-space panel with only 18 breakers so far.
The reason I was looking at this panel now was to replace a regular beaker by an AFCI one for the bedrooms and perhaps put in a separate circuit for the refrigerator, but almost every time I look at this panel I discover more oddities: I have just realized that there is no separate ground bus: neutrals (white) and grounds (bare) for each circuit are all connected to the one bus. Moreover, the bare conductor (stranded Al) that comes into this panel from the main panel does not seem to be connected to anything -- simply folded back against itself and "lying loose"; but of course it's stiff enough that it's probably not going to go anywhere and short anything.
So AFAICS everything is grounded back to the service entrance only through the neutral.
This oddity is in addition to the two wires attached to three of the breakers (which the home inspector pointed out as a Code violation but admitted that he had at least one such in his own home) -- and in one case it's even a red and a black: a pair of tied breakers, one with two blacks, and the other with a red and a black.
And another breaker has just one wire connected directly to it, but it then feeds three wires (with a wire-nut connection). So all these "multiple hots" necessitate additional connections to the neutral/ground bar, which has only 13 holes in addition to the large one for the "supply" conductor, so each hole already has at least two wires, and several have three wires.
Could it be that the "separate ground and neutral in a subpanel" rule was not in force 30+ years ago?
And what about the "floating" bare conductor?
The whole thing looks a mess to me.
Advice?
The reason I was looking at this panel now was to replace a regular beaker by an AFCI one for the bedrooms and perhaps put in a separate circuit for the refrigerator, but almost every time I look at this panel I discover more oddities: I have just realized that there is no separate ground bus: neutrals (white) and grounds (bare) for each circuit are all connected to the one bus. Moreover, the bare conductor (stranded Al) that comes into this panel from the main panel does not seem to be connected to anything -- simply folded back against itself and "lying loose"; but of course it's stiff enough that it's probably not going to go anywhere and short anything.
So AFAICS everything is grounded back to the service entrance only through the neutral.
This oddity is in addition to the two wires attached to three of the breakers (which the home inspector pointed out as a Code violation but admitted that he had at least one such in his own home) -- and in one case it's even a red and a black: a pair of tied breakers, one with two blacks, and the other with a red and a black.
And another breaker has just one wire connected directly to it, but it then feeds three wires (with a wire-nut connection). So all these "multiple hots" necessitate additional connections to the neutral/ground bar, which has only 13 holes in addition to the large one for the "supply" conductor, so each hole already has at least two wires, and several have three wires.
Could it be that the "separate ground and neutral in a subpanel" rule was not in force 30+ years ago?
And what about the "floating" bare conductor?
The whole thing looks a mess to me.
Advice?
