Scott Irwin

Crusty, I have that very book and have not been able to find a passage, paragragh, or chapter that definitively answers the question. Maybe it is right in front of me and I am just not seeing it. Could you help with a page number? Thanks for the help. Scott

Calling all electical gurus. I recently inspected a rural property that got me into a puzzling situation. The power to the property originates at a roadside power pole approx. 200 feet from the residence. A service disconnect (breaker) exists within the meterbox attached to the pole. Within the box the neutral and ground are bonded together and a ground wire is directed to a rod buried at the base of the pole. A 3-wire feed is buried to the residence, where it enters the main panel located within the garage. At this panel, the neutrals and grounds are combined and attached on the same attachment bar. A subpanel has been installed within a detached garage/workshop and it too has been fed by a 3-wire cable. Again, the neutrals and grounds are attached to the same bar. As I have in the past, I stated the panels downstream from the service disconnect were subpanels, and as such, should have the neutrals and grounds separated. An electrician is called out to the property (at a later date) to correct the issues I identified. Well, he states that since the main panel is greater than 150 feet from the service disconnect that the nuetral and ground should be rebonded. He also stated that since the subpanel was fed with a 3-wire feed, it too should have the neutrals and grounds rebonded. So then, I am totally confused, since this type of configuration goes against all that I "thought" was correct. As luck would have it, the same configuration existed at a similar property (less the sub at a detached building) I inspected yesterday. So now I am thinking, maybe I don't know everything, and there is more for me to learn regarding this type of service configuration. Please enlighten me. Scott