Re: 3 Wire Electrical Subpanel Question

Posted by John T on January 12, 2017 at 16:07:03 from (68.243.49.113):

In Reply to: 3 Wire Electrical Subpanel Question posted by pburchett on January 12, 2017 at 12:01:17:

Good detail and serious thoughtful questions, you're no Billy Bob lol

You ask "BUT should there be a ground rod connected to the barn subpanel?" My short answer/opinion is YES

Unless the NEC has changed (which I seriously doubt) as I best recall (NO Warranty) EVERY BUILDINGS ELECTRICAL SERVICE REQUIRES GROUNDING and Id say your barn is a building and it has an electrical service SO YES YOUR BARNS ELECTRICAL SERVICE REQUIRES GROUNDING IN MY OPINION but no warranty I'm too long retired and not up on latest codes and this may be wrong as rain, do as you please

That being said, and speaking of "ground rods" when I practiced power distribution design we (per NEC and local jurisdiction) were required to bond to all "readily available" Grounding Electrodes and such may consist of structural building steel, earth ground grids, metallic buried utility pipes, and "made electrodes" such as copper rods driven into earth. Since you may not have structural steel and no water lines or buried grids, I would use at least one better two driven into earth copper ground rods subject to local authority (if any) and local codes (if any). In our jurisdiction at the time we were required to drive the first rod then test it and if it failed drive another rod HOWEVER YOUR JURISDICTION MAY REQUIRE TWO RODS SO CHECK WITH THEM IF ANY SUCH EXIST AND IF IN DOUBT ID JUST DRIVE TWO AND BE DONE WITH IT is my best rusty professional advice

So its my best professional (albeit old n rusty lol) opinion YES use one or two driven into earth "made grounding electrodes" of copper rods at the "buildings electrical service"

PS the old codes only required three wires (2 Hots and Neutral) be ran to a barn sub panel but later codes recognized it was safer to run 4 wires (2 Hots, Neutral, Equipment Ground) out to sub panels and at the sub the Neutral Buss and Equipment Ground Buss were electrically separated and isolated from each other unlike at the main where they are bonded. This allows for the concept of SINGLE POINT GROUNDING which is safer for several reasons. There should be ONLY ONE Neutral Ground Bond for safety purposes..........

Check with local authority and trained competent professional electricians and engineers and if they say do it different then anything posted here (me included) you may want to give that serious thought....

John T Too long retired electrical power distribution design engineer so no warranty, consult professionals

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