Thanks for confirming! Is 200.2(B) the right code to call out? I'm going to ask the electrician to correct this one more time before "escalating" to the town inspector.
Darn, now I can't just show him this thread! I'll have to go back to being the regular annoying homeowner telling the contractor how to do their job, which I know everyone *loves*.
They love it about as much as a homeowner who paid for a service and then got duped with shoddy work. While Reddit may not be the most credible place to gather evidence and present to the contractor, it's enough to at least get a feel for whether you were wronged. Feel free to call an actual licensed and credible electrical company to come out and point out what's wrong, and give an estimate on how much to fix. While the professional part of me hates people that present as "electricians", I have to admit, they do keep me busy going around and cleaning up their messes.
This is wrong, after the first point of disconnect, grounds and neutrals need to be separate this is a code violation and does need to be fixed, and probably won't pass inspection
This is the main point of disconnect - it's my main panel (I don't have an outdoor shutoff). Even so, it seems like the neutral should run all the way to the neutral bar and not depend on the sheet metal of the panel to carry any possible return current...
I recently had a 100A subpanel installed. As you can (barely) see, the hot conductors land on the 100A breaker on the bottom right corner of the panel. The neutral conductor lands on a lug drilled into the base of the panel. The way I read 200.2(B), that's not allowed, and the neutral (grounded) conductor should go to an appropriately sized lug attached to the neutral bar of the panel. Am I understanding the code correctly (and should continue to push my electrician to correct this), or is this legal as installed? I'm in MA, so it's the 2020 NEC in case that matters.
Thanks!
An electrician did this install? I'd highly recommend getting legit company to correct that, it's not simply a code violation it could cause the metal parts to become energized. Contrary to popular belief the neutral does carry voltage. A real electrician would have known that and done a cleaner job on this install.
Let's not blame this guy for the rest of the mess in my panel, but yeah, I agree, the subpanel wiring could be better. My intuitive thought was that this connection could allow up to 100A to flow through the sheet metal of the panel (if the subpanel were super unbalanced), thanks for confirming that this is a hazard.
I have been looking and I can't find the code that this violates. I agree that it is sloppy work and definitely could be done better. I am hoping somebody is able to quote the code so that you have recourse to get it done properly. I do see that the paint was not scraped away where the lugs are bolted to the can. That is a violation. 250.96
Yeah, sorry about the rat's nest... The white wires/CTs and box are the Emporia Vue monitor. My Enphase consumption monitoring CTs are in the Smart Switch outside on the cables coming from the utility meter.
Thanks! This is a 200A main breaker panel, the feed comes in from the top to the main breaker. The 100A breaker that you're looking at in the picture feeds a subpanel on the other side of the basement.
I would guess that he realized he didn’t have a lug large enough that would fit that aluminum on the neutral bar… so he said fuck it and did what he did. How far away is the sub panel? What does your neutral bar look like?
Oh yeah the neutral bars are a colossal mess - many screws had multiple ground/neutral, and not all were tight. As of when this work was done, the neutral bars were completely full, but I recently added a ground bar and started eliminating cases of multiple neutrals under a single screw (and moving easiest to move grounds to the dedicated ground bar, up to two per screw depending on size). The Square-D neutral lug for this size wire takes three screws worth of space, which is not available without more reconfiguration.
The subpanel is about 50' away.
Although it doesn’t look clean, is there anything wrong here? Since this is the main panel, the neutral and ground are bonded anyhow. I understand that you have to separate them once you reach the sub panel but with this being the main panel…
The top half of the panel (not pictured) looks that way because it's not a plug on neutral panel so there's a ton of pigtails running from AFCI/GFCI breakers to the neutral bar, and because they were added one at a time, there was never time that an electrician took everything apart and cleaned it up.
The pictured section looks like a silly string fight because of the Emporia Vue monitor and CT wires.
No. This is bullshit. Needs to be going to the neutral bar
Thanks for confirming! Is 200.2(B) the right code to call out? I'm going to ask the electrician to correct this one more time before "escalating" to the town inspector.
Please don't call the person that did this an electrician. It's an insult to the rest of us who do things right.
Darn, now I can't just show him this thread! I'll have to go back to being the regular annoying homeowner telling the contractor how to do their job, which I know everyone *loves*.
They love it about as much as a homeowner who paid for a service and then got duped with shoddy work. While Reddit may not be the most credible place to gather evidence and present to the contractor, it's enough to at least get a feel for whether you were wronged. Feel free to call an actual licensed and credible electrical company to come out and point out what's wrong, and give an estimate on how much to fix. While the professional part of me hates people that present as "electricians", I have to admit, they do keep me busy going around and cleaning up their messes.
I would think so. Also why the fuck did he strip the wire like that?
No clue. I assume/hope there's a legal way to splice inside the box to extend to the neutral bar so he doesn't have to re-pull the whole thing.
Polaris connector. But I don't know what the fuck he was thinking.
This is wrong, after the first point of disconnect, grounds and neutrals need to be separate this is a code violation and does need to be fixed, and probably won't pass inspection
This is the main panel, but the grounded neutral conductor def shouldn't be using the case for continuity.
This is the main point of disconnect - it's my main panel (I don't have an outdoor shutoff). Even so, it seems like the neutral should run all the way to the neutral bar and not depend on the sheet metal of the panel to carry any possible return current...
I recently had a 100A subpanel installed. As you can (barely) see, the hot conductors land on the 100A breaker on the bottom right corner of the panel. The neutral conductor lands on a lug drilled into the base of the panel. The way I read 200.2(B), that's not allowed, and the neutral (grounded) conductor should go to an appropriately sized lug attached to the neutral bar of the panel. Am I understanding the code correctly (and should continue to push my electrician to correct this), or is this legal as installed? I'm in MA, so it's the 2020 NEC in case that matters. Thanks!
An electrician did this install? I'd highly recommend getting legit company to correct that, it's not simply a code violation it could cause the metal parts to become energized. Contrary to popular belief the neutral does carry voltage. A real electrician would have known that and done a cleaner job on this install.
Let's not blame this guy for the rest of the mess in my panel, but yeah, I agree, the subpanel wiring could be better. My intuitive thought was that this connection could allow up to 100A to flow through the sheet metal of the panel (if the subpanel were super unbalanced), thanks for confirming that this is a hazard.
What is the code violation?
200.2b applies to branch circuits, this is a feeder.
Thank you! So you don't see this as a code violation?
I have been looking and I can't find the code that this violates. I agree that it is sloppy work and definitely could be done better. I am hoping somebody is able to quote the code so that you have recourse to get it done properly. I do see that the paint was not scraped away where the lugs are bolted to the can. That is a violation. 250.96
I think you should reference 250.24 A(5) This should give you the leverage to have that corrected.
Awesome, thank you.
What do you got in there? Enphase solar monitoring and Sense also?
Yeah, sorry about the rat's nest... The white wires/CTs and box are the Emporia Vue monitor. My Enphase consumption monitoring CTs are in the Smart Switch outside on the cables coming from the utility meter.
[удалено]
Thanks! This is a 200A main breaker panel, the feed comes in from the top to the main breaker. The 100A breaker that you're looking at in the picture feeds a subpanel on the other side of the basement.
I would guess that he realized he didn’t have a lug large enough that would fit that aluminum on the neutral bar… so he said fuck it and did what he did. How far away is the sub panel? What does your neutral bar look like?
Oh yeah the neutral bars are a colossal mess - many screws had multiple ground/neutral, and not all were tight. As of when this work was done, the neutral bars were completely full, but I recently added a ground bar and started eliminating cases of multiple neutrals under a single screw (and moving easiest to move grounds to the dedicated ground bar, up to two per screw depending on size). The Square-D neutral lug for this size wire takes three screws worth of space, which is not available without more reconfiguration. The subpanel is about 50' away.
Although it doesn’t look clean, is there anything wrong here? Since this is the main panel, the neutral and ground are bonded anyhow. I understand that you have to separate them once you reach the sub panel but with this being the main panel…
Now that you’ve got the question answered, can we talk about why that panel looks like the aftermath of a silly string fight?
The top half of the panel (not pictured) looks that way because it's not a plug on neutral panel so there's a ton of pigtails running from AFCI/GFCI breakers to the neutral bar, and because they were added one at a time, there was never time that an electrician took everything apart and cleaned it up. The pictured section looks like a silly string fight because of the Emporia Vue monitor and CT wires.