Hi all,
A new member to this forum, but long time scroller. I am looking for some guidance on bonding a panel.
We bought a home that was built in 88'. We will be replacing an outdoor main disconnect, with one that has spaces for breakers for a future outdoor sub-panel. Anywhoo, we have two points of disconnect for our indoor panel. The first point of disconnect is the outdoor main breaker, and a main breaker residing within our indoor panel. There is a single grounding rod with bare copper that lands in the meter can where it is bonded to neutral. The disconnect and meter can are metal and mounted together. There is a 3 wire service (hot,hot,neutral) that runs via PVC from the disconnect to indoor panel (no ground). The indoor panel is bonded to the neutral (shared bus bar) with no dedicated ground.
Question: Is this normal? Maybe code was different in the 80's, but I thought you should not have a bonded panel after the first point of disconnect. I have attached some photos. The electrician who has serviced the panel said this is a normal three wire service, but I have not been able to corroborate this via the NEC or via other forum posts. Any info helps! Still learning. From a theory perspective, I suppose that as long as the ground are bonded to Neutral, that any ground faults would find there way back to source from the outdoor main breaker.
Thanks,
Zach
A new member to this forum, but long time scroller. I am looking for some guidance on bonding a panel.
We bought a home that was built in 88'. We will be replacing an outdoor main disconnect, with one that has spaces for breakers for a future outdoor sub-panel. Anywhoo, we have two points of disconnect for our indoor panel. The first point of disconnect is the outdoor main breaker, and a main breaker residing within our indoor panel. There is a single grounding rod with bare copper that lands in the meter can where it is bonded to neutral. The disconnect and meter can are metal and mounted together. There is a 3 wire service (hot,hot,neutral) that runs via PVC from the disconnect to indoor panel (no ground). The indoor panel is bonded to the neutral (shared bus bar) with no dedicated ground.
Question: Is this normal? Maybe code was different in the 80's, but I thought you should not have a bonded panel after the first point of disconnect. I have attached some photos. The electrician who has serviced the panel said this is a normal three wire service, but I have not been able to corroborate this via the NEC or via other forum posts. Any info helps! Still learning. From a theory perspective, I suppose that as long as the ground are bonded to Neutral, that any ground faults would find there way back to source from the outdoor main breaker.
Thanks,
Zach