Any electricians here? Have a question about wiring up a subpanel in my shop! [Archive] - Scream And Fly Powerboat and High Performance Powerboating Discussion Forums

imq707s

03-13-2014, 02:03 PM

I’ve had my new shop wired for power for around a year or so now…..and I think I may have just noticed a problem. I have a 100amp sub panel in my shop that is fed from a 100amp breaker at the main breaker panel in my house…about 300ft away from the shop. I have 3 large cables (2 hot, 1 neutral) in PVC tube 4ft underground going from the house breaker panel, to the sub panel in my shop. For the sub panel ground, I have an 8ft long ½” diameter copper grounding rod drove into the ground right outside the shop. I only have one buss bar in the subpanel, and I have the main neutral wire to it coming from the house, and ALSO have the big ground wire hooked to it that goes to the ground rod. This was all done this way based off of recommendations from my local electrical company guy.

Well…I just happened to stumble on to some stuff that makes me wonder about the installation. From what I’ve seen…..I should have TWO buss bars in the sub panel. One for the ground wires, and one for the neutral wires…..they only place they are supposed to be connected it back at the house inside the main breaker cabinet. Adding another bar should be easy….but what about my ground? Am I ok using the ground rod to ground the sub panel…..or so I need to run a cable underground 300ft all the way back to the house?

Thanks for the help!!

Riverratt

03-13-2014, 02:36 PM

Neutrals and grounds are supposed to be separate in a sub panel but not required to be separate in a main panel. Add the second bar and just move the ground wire coming from the ground rod outside to the new ground bar along with all the circuit grounds

mach1magnum

03-13-2014, 02:59 PM

in the big picture the way it is now is the way it was done for many years then the code was changed the way you have it should not pos any hazard at all

Ally101

03-13-2014, 03:04 PM

It will work the way u have it with know issues but it want pass code in Texas.if u want to seperate the neutrals and grounds make sure the buss that's in there don't have a ground screw bonding the buss to the panel or ur defeating the purpose of seperating them. If it was me I would have pulled ground wire with ur feeders

Tinkerer

03-13-2014, 09:53 PM

You should have had at least an 8 gauge ground wire connecting the two panels. And the more ground rods the better. I have one at the house, one at the barn sub panel and one at the generator.

lokinutz

03-19-2014, 10:04 AM

It will work the way u have it with know issues but it want pass code in Texas.if u want to seperate the neutrals and grounds make sure the buss that's in there don't have a ground screw bonding the buss to the panel or ur defeating the purpose of seperating them. If it was me I would have pulled ground wire with ur feeders
I agree with this. Will work how you have it but, I just did a 100amp sub 165' from main and pulled 3 #2 wires (2 hot 1 neutral) and 1 #8 ground to tie everything together per code. They also wanted a ufer at the sub. Are you having any issues with your gfi's? That would be where I would see a problem with how you have it wired. The guy saved you some money in wire but cost you money in grounding rod. If it were mine, I would pull a ground to main, add ground bar, keep current ground, and separate everything per most places code. How does your city want it?