I did a fairly complex home inspection yesterday and have a question. This house has two 200 Amp service entrance cables. There are two main disconnects on the exterior.
200 Amp panel with disconnect in the storage room of the basement (opposite side of house and drop). Neutral and ground bonded.
Another 200 Amp panel without disconnect at the utility room in the basement (middle of house). Neutral and ground separated.
Sub-panel for Generator adjacent to 200 Amp panel in the utility room. Neutral and ground separated.
Another 60 Amp sup-panel feeding off the 200 Amp panel in the utility room.
The 60 Amp sub-panel is in question. The grounding and neutral wires are bonded together on the same bus bar for this sub-panel. Am I correct in calling this out, since the sub-panel has the neutral and ground bonded and not isolated? Or is this acceptable because of the configuration of the main panels?
neutral and ground must be isolated in every subpanel, probably including your 200 amp in the basement. Everything “downstream” of those two disconnects below the meter should be isolated
Yes, as Michael said, the remote distribution panels, downstream of the 2 exterior service disconnects, should have their grounded (neutral) and grounding (grounds) conductors separated. And, the grounded conductors should be isolated from the panel boards while the grounding conductors should be bonded to the panel boards.
One of those service disconnect on the exterior is way to close to the brick. Painfully close… think of one having the use the level while brushing up aginst the brick. During an emergency a firefighter with thick gloves might not be able to use it at all.
Also, in the interior panel, the classic ground and neutral on the same buss violation. Both panels in the home are now subpanels, and must have a 4 wire feed or 3 wires with a conduit serving as ground. So far in doesn’t appear to be that way.
Do you have pics of both panels with the cover off?
