what do we bond neutrals and grounds in the main panel

[@vince6829]

Best explanation that I have seen for why we bond the neutrals and the grounds at the first point of disconnect. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@kangaroogod]

I have been doing this for nearly 3 decades and this is the best explanation I have ever heard

[@Stevenj120volts]

@@kangaroogod thanks

[@Lance-i2t]

I have watched so many videos on youtube but this is by far the best . The way you explain is very easy to follow. Keep the content flowing. Thanks

[@markniles3013]

Love the way you explain things so simply with real-life examples. Thank you for all the great videos.

[@aaronallen1352]

I have been wiring my detatched garage. I have watch many videos by electricians and so called. Your videos are by far the most informative of all. Thank you

[@GregOnSummit]

Thanks .... it all clicked into place for the why to do it. I always followed the rule, but now I know the why. Thank you👍

[@jeffmiller6100]

As a non professional electrician I want to thank you For your Knowledge. Never really understood A/C electrical, But these videos have given me basics that at some point will help 👌

[@BCKinstedt]

This is a beautiful video, clean,simple and to the point. Thank you. 😊

[@MakeFixUpgrade]

Great explanation! The only gap I can see is explaining what happens if you link neutral and ground in a sub panel as well as in the main panel.

[@Magneticitist]

Imagine you have your main panel and the neutral bus is tied to the ground bus. Then imagine this is feeding any kind of circuit that has a ground. Subpanel, junction box etc.. Well if your neutrals are tied to your grounds at the source, and then you tied them back together again somewhere else downstream, you've basically just created a parallel run of conductors. The line current is going to be closing the loop using both the neutral and the ground conductors at that point. Basically it means you'll have current across the ground wire in normal load conditions on that circuit, but it should only ever pass current in a fault condition.

[@cranstonwilliamsworth9644]

Good stuff, clarified a lot of things for me

[@vigilantobserver8389]

Thank you very much! That was an excellent explanation!

[@damianrodriguez2205]

The reason why we ground at the main service is strictly for overvoltage conditions due to transient lightning strikes. It helps dissipate that high impulse back into the earth. It doesn't do anything for tripping breakers. The contact resistance between the rod, and the dirt is so high it would never trip any breaker. So the simple answer is, is we once at the service and then bond everything else downstream that bonding serves a purpose to clear fault. It creates a low impedance path back to the source to open up an overcurrent protection device that low impedance path is called equipment grounding conductor.

[@curiosoagain]

Thanks for taking the time to explain this, I have a house in Mexico and all the residential electricians that I have dealt with don't really have an understanding on the importance of the ground wire, I ended up re-wiring the whole house myself with us codes and it all works like a champ, they all told me what a waste of wire. Maybe they think that because the outlets there don't have any metal in them ? The newer outlets are all plastic frame now. Idk but man, I got tired of trying to find someone to just shut up and run a ground wire and not bitch about it, so I just did it all myself. It was a bitch because it's all concrete and cmu but with my remodel experience i was able to go thru the loops and whatnot.

[@danstrayer111]

I stayed with a friend who ha a huge stone B&B in Mexico. 3 big stone rooms, pool, showers. Nice place. The electrical was a nightmare, wires hanging out of rock walls, going all over the place. One plug was 2 feet from the pool with a metal cover on it, I probed the ground lug and neutral side and got 60 volts. I stayed for a month and assisted in untangling the worst mess you can imagine.

[@curiosoagain]

@danstrayer111 oh trust me, I know exactly what u talking about man Good thing you came to the rescue It's unreal how they do things down there in residential, commercial and industrial i guess it's pretty much the same more or less.

[@curiosoagain]

@danstrayer111 than in the US I mean, commercial and industrial wiring. Residential is the one that scared the crap out of me in Mexico

[@houptee]

I lost my neutral at the service drop across the street where it was crimped to the utility wires. I had 5 amps on the ground wire to the 2 ground rods. My only indication of the problem was my detached garage fluorescent lights started flashing like a disco. That's when I started testing voltage at each leg and noticed imbalance of 120 and 105. Then when I put amp clamp on the ground I saw the current reading of 5 amps. I called the utility company and they came right out and he saw I had no neutral at the meter socket when he pulled the meter. He was in a panic and ran to the neighbors house and pulled the meter but they had neutral. Then he got in the bucket and went to the crimps across the street and said they never crimped my wires correctly the wrong die was used in the tool by whoever made those original crimps. He cut everything and made 3 new crimps with his Milwaukee tool. Everything good since then. So current will definitely flow on the ground wire from the transformer down into the earth and complete the circuit when you lose the neutral from the transformer. It will depend on the earth conditions of course. I'm near the beach in NJ and my yard is usually wet and clay soil.

[@joshyingling]

Great job with your videos I appreciate the explanation

[@eddasher9983]

Thanks, excellant explaination

[@ciarantheanarchist]

It's the definition of " one time" that seems to be up for debate. In domestic panels I often see all the neutrals and ground intermixed on both bus blocks. I almost never see that in a commercial panel - neutrals to one block, and grounds to the other with a single bond.

[@DerekSpeareDSD]

so to understand this: the hot cannot connect to the neutral without a load on it first, is this correct?

[@kevonslims7269]

So if I’m standing in my kitchen on my tile floor and I touch my toaster that has a L1 short to the metal case of the toaster and my ground wire is missing for some reason, if the metal of the toaster has a 120 volts potential and I touch it how do I get shocked if I’m standing on my tile floor and between me and the toaster there’s no path to the source?

[@brianb5779]

Off topic question. Can a AC fuse be used in a DC circuit. For example, high current ex., for a automotive starter. Just curious, and thanks in advance

[@jerryk3562]

? Professor Electricity, Please answer me this question. The transformer has a ground that runs to the ground beside the Pole. what happens when the copper Pirates, steel the copper wire? What I did was put my meter and a 200 amp pass through panel on a 6 x 6 Is pressure treated lumber, on the side of my home 10 feet from my home with two 5/8" 10' copper rod ten foot apart. I used number 4 gauge solid copper wire from the City side of the meter neutral through the panel to the first ground and then to the second ground rod without a break. I did this in case there was a power surger or the Transformer was hit by lightning. It would go somewhere else before it would come to the panel in my home professor, what is your opinion of this?

[@jerwin2804]

No, sir, thank you very much.

[@martyb3783]

I was told that electricity IS magicness. 😁

[@CM-kl9qh]

Pedantic word of caution! Concrete conducts electricity! It’s happened to me. A temporary connection to test a conveyor motor was poorly grounded. I sat on the concrete floor and leaned against the conveyor leg. My derriere started to tingle and caused me to jump! I’ve also seen electronic equipment destroyed by neutral to ground potential.

[@backwoods357]

I've literally watched a video of an electrician measuring electricity flowing back through the grounded support wire on the pole.

[@robertmycroft8268]

I'm confused (it doesn't take much.) If you bond neutral and ground at the pole and have your grounding rods at the pole, then run a 4 wire feed to the house where the breaker panel is in the basement, do you leave the neutral and ground bonded at the breaker panel?

[@robertmycroft8268]

I think you answered my question in a response to @fun101... The ground and neutral remain bonded at the breaker panel so a breaker can keep flow from returning towards the grounding rods. Do I have that correct? It is subsequent sub panels that must have the neutral and grounds not bonded.

[@CJRock-xn5qf]

Ground to neutral bonding at the service equipment can only be done at the first means of disconnect. Any point downstream of the first means of disconnect requires neutrals and equipment grounds be separated i.e. the neutral bar must be electrically insulated from the panel, no bonding jumper present, and absolutely no equipment grounds on the neutral bar or vice versa. You have to determine if your main panel doubles as the first means of disconnect.

[@tonystafano4028]

I had a buried cable that a gopher had chewed on and exposed bare wire to earth. The breaker would not break immediately in fact it would sometimes take a week. My guess is that it would only have contact when the earth was wet

[@jstone1211]

you are correct, coming off the transformer there is NO ground. However, somewhere in the large distribution network, usually at substations there is a ground or grounded conductor. Usually from the center tap on a Y transformer. Therefore, at the ground rod at the home or plant facility a ground rod is indeed placed into ground, and this ground will indeed allow power to "flow" back to the source. Power always returns to its source back to the Y tx....

[@CJRock-xn5qf]

The residential utility transformer electrically isolates the load side from the utility source. There is no current exchange between the source side and the load side. That is why it's defined as a "separately derived system".

[@jstone1211]

@@CJRock-xn5qf respectfully disagree...

[@jstone1211]

@@CJRock-xn5qf I think you are confused. Magnetic fields are indeed shared from the high voltage side for the low voltage side. To provide current there has to be mutual magnetic fields to produce the current. Transformer action is the result of Faraday's law.

[@CJRock-xn5qf]

@@jstone1211 Good for you but NEC context is important. Electrons are not exchanged between secondary and primary windings in a separately derived system.

[@jstone1211]

@@CJRock-xn5qf But magnetic fields or flux lines go from the primary winding to the secondary winding. Without the "sharing" of magnetic field there would be no current in the secondary winding. Suggest you study Faraday's Law which explains how currents are induced...from a magnetic field. Your comment is ignorant.

[@alabamainformedpublic.]

So my question is what if the home is wired directly to the main panel? And how do you connect your ground and your neutral if they are the same in the main panel? Does it not make a difference?

[@CJRock-xn5qf]

By code the neutral to ground bond can only be done at the first means of disconnect. If the main panel doubles as the first means of disconnect then that's where the bonding jumper is located. The main bonding jumper is typically a green dyed machine screw that goes through the neutral bar and THREADS into the main panel metal structure. From that point downstream, there can be no bonding of neutral (technically the grounded conductor) and the equipment protective ground (green/bare wire ground). All panels downstream of the first means of disconnect must have neutrals and grounds separated and there can be no bonding jumper. So if there's a disconnect switch upstream from the main panel (not in your case), then the main panel neutrals must be separated from equipment protective grounds and no bonding jumper present in the main panel. There are additional rules for the location of the grounding electrode conductor relative to the main bonding jumper and equipment grounding conductor.

[@alabamainformedpublic.]

@CJRock-xn5qf I Think I understand depending on where you're located and the code. If you have a secondary panel, the natural is separated from the ground in the secondary panel And your main panel is the only one that has the neutral and the ground connected Which is your main disconnect Is located. Is that right?

[@CJRock-xn5qf]

​@@alabamainformedpublic. Correct if your main panel is the first means of disconnect which in your case means the service drop comes directly from the transformer through the meter and into your main panel. There is no disconnect switch between the meter and your main panel.

[@alabamainformedpublic.]

​@@CJRock-xn5qfThank you for explaining. And now I understand the neutral and ground is connected Together only in the main box. And for people who have a secondary box, the neutral and ground is separated. I'm still curious why they're separated in the secondary box other than it be in the code. What purpose does this serve? Because the ground and neutral in the secondary box still goes to the first box where they are connected together.

[@CJRock-xn5qf]

@alabamainformedpublic. Connecting the neutral and ground at a point downstream will create a second equipotential point and may allow some of the neutral current at the downstream panel to be carried by the protective equipment ground. See Kirchoff's Law. Protective grounds are to limit the voltage potential of exposed metal and clear fault currents by opening the over current breaker or fuse. If neutral currents are present on the protective ground, the ability to clear fault currents is jeopardized. IOW, a big no no.

[@sammyyourmammy8170]

that pole mounted transformer that you just pointed out has it's neutral conductor bonded via #6 soild copper to a 3/4" x 10' groundrod within 6' of the pole base, explain that genius.........

[@SurfingBoulder]

EGC GEC NEC...OH MY!!!

[@genebowdish.mageniemagic]

Some electricians take a clamp amperage meter and check grounds, water pipes, metal cables, copper pipes, etc every day ( especially on a farm with farm animals ) or every week, or every month depending on probability of objectionable current A lot of people are telling there stories on KZbin about farms and animals drinking and getting shocked and the farmers and animals gets saved by an electrician who specializes in that area

[@SurfingBoulder]

I work in Solar and this subject is always always always misinterpreted and i dont understand why

[@matthewgalcik2733]

Such a great video. But I just cannot understand if a current is coming back on the neutral from the dryer,why doesn’t it make a U-turn and some of it go back to the dryer on the ground wire. They say current takes all paths. That is what confuses everybody.

[@danstrayer111]

it's less resistance to return to the breaker panel via copper, rather than pass through the steel casing of the machine, which is certainly higher resistance.

[@Juicysmoolyay7259]

I Spent 20k on Apex Tech electrical course. The difference is you are not an immigrant struggling with English so it all makes sense to me now😂

[@gearhead1302]

Wow that was simple actually. Kind of makes me annoyed that so many people were so bad at explaining that 😂. I just didn't get it because they sucked at teaching.

[@tfun101]

I’m not totally sure about the ground rod bro…Mike holt did an experiment where he energized a ground rod that was tied back to the main panel. There was a voltage gradient around the ground rod that could still kill.

[@Stevenj120volts]

@tfun101 if you energized a ground rod that is tied to the main panel the breaker will just trip. So I don't think he did what you think he did

[@tfun101]

Tied back to the main panel ground bar I mean.

[@Stevenj120volts]

@tfun101 in the "main" panel the neutral and ground bar are the same if you put 120v to a ground rod that is tied to that will just trip a breaker. What do think is incorrect in my video?

[@shamrockshore6308]

​@Stevenj120volts Your diagram describes what we call a TNC-S suppy (Terra Neutral Combined-Separate). You can also have a TT, which is commonly known as direct earthing in the UK and other places. There's also TNS, which has a separate ground (earth) wire from the meter to the neutral point of the transformer, which can be expensive for the utility company, so they opt for TNC-S to save on that extra run of copper/aluminium. This can cause a problem though, if the neutral between the meter and transformer should break, because the grounded metal casing of appliances then becomes hot with respect to the general mass of the Earth....so they introduce the local ground electrode which is also bonded to the neutral and ground at the meter. This reduces the potential for a dangerous voltage between the general mass of the Earth and the metal appliance casing, should the soil conditions have low enough resistance to pass current. If the soil resistance is high enough, then it will tend to act as an insulator, preventing injury that way. It's the primary scenario for using a local ground electrode, and not to protect against a hot conductor making the general mass of earth hot, as you described

[@tfun101]

@@Stevenj120volts er no my mistake Steven it wasn't tied back to the main, he just energized a ground rod and tried to use the earth as a ground fault current path to trip the breaker but it didn't bc there was too much resistance. It just stayed hot and produced a voltage gradient around the ground rod.

[@okiedoke6373]

6

[@hemetelectricalservices]

Edit the title brother