Spliced SEC, FPE & Bonding

[David C. Macy]

The main SEC were spliced in the FPE panel. It looks like they ran copper to the older cloth SEC that I believe would be Tin coated copper.

It is not allowed to splice the SEC correct?

Also the Sub panel looked to be improperly bonded as I have asked about many times & I hope I understand. If I am correct the bonding bar should not be installed in the sub.

Thanks

[Jeffrey R. Pope]

Splicing the SEC is allowed. I can't tell how it was done in your picture.

The load side panel is improperly wired. The egc's are attached to the neutral bus and there is no grounding bus.

The tie-bar could be removed and one bus could be bonded to the box, but that's not for us to decide.

[Marc D. Shunk]

It also lookes like the service entrance nipple is not connected to the service panel. It appears that they took out enough knockouts to just place the panel over the nipple sticking through the wall. Other than that problem, the panel on the left looks reasonably well done (or as good as a 12" wide FPE can look). Probalby a few doubled up neutrals in there too, judging purely by the number of branch breakers versus how many screws I believe that panel has on the neutral bar. The panel on the right has the obvious problems that Mr. Pope points out. The panel on the right also has serious workmanship issues.

[Marc D. Shunk]

Originally Posted by jpope

Splicing the SEC is allowed. I can't tell how it was done in your picture.

I've been puzzling on that picture, trying to determine for myself how that splice might have been accomplished. I noticed that the grounding electrode conductor to the left of the panel was spliced with a copper C-Tap. The black taped up profile of the spliced service entrance conductors in the panel is pretty much what you'd expect from a completed H-tap or C-tap crimp, which is accomplished with the same general tooling. In any event, it appears compliant and well done, from what I can see in the pictures.

[tdietrich1]

That looks like a GE manufactured panel, I had a run in with an electrical inspector, removing the tie bar is only allowed if you creating an 'isolated grounding bar'. A ground bar must be purchased/installed for separating grounds from neutrals.

tom