Grounds and neutrals sharing bus bars

I know that George is a big critic of the use of the word floating and I agree with him. If your system has a grounded conductor or neutral within that system it cannot be floating.

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Again, thank you for helping it be clearer in my mind, and hopefully others, too. :smile:

Can you say separated? Odds are that they are electrically connected somewhere after the first disconnect.

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Why they be connected after the service disconnect?

Yes, Michael I can say separated.

You come across as bumptious. But, that’s not new, now is it. :roll_eyes:

Trying reading the words. Not into the words.

Mis wiring. That is why isolated/floating are misleading. Saying that they are separated is a fact. Isolated/floating may or may not be true.

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Yup, bumptious…

Maybe you could try to be less full of yourself. :roll_eyes:

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Aren’t all good inspectors?

Arrogant?..no, Michael. All good inspectors are not arrogant, pushy, self-important, conceited, pompous, overbearing, etc. . :roll_eyes:

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Most of them that I know are. Worse than attorneys.

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The more that I think about using the word floating is just terrible. George is on to something, even when I search for a definition of the word that would relate to this application I cannot find one. Floating would need to be synonymous with not connected to before it would actually make sense to use the word floating in this context.

Thanks, Robert. That makes sense and helps me, and others I’m sure, grasp why floating is not a good description and, Michael, separated makes sense, too. Thank you.

I wish to get de-con-fused as well.
At the service panel (ONLY AT THE SERVICE PANEL - HUGELY IMPORTANT) the neutral bus bar ‘is bonded’ to ground. That is a different read than saying circuit neutrals and circuit ground conductors can share the same point of termination on a bus bar. Or at least to me.

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The neutrals and grounds can only terminate on the same bar in a service panel or a panel only fed by three conductors in a detached outbuilding. There are additional considerations to the outbuilding like no metallic paths etc. This exception was removed under the 2008 NEC. Now outbuildings need a 4 wire feeder.

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If the main service panel happens to be the same place that the grounded ( neutral ) conductor is bonded to the grounding electrode, then there is no problem mixing grounds and neutrals on the same bus bar (as long as there is an appropriate number of conductors terminated under each lug).

the point of bonding neutral in service panel is not to connect it to the grounding electrode.

Michael, look what word I used in my description bolded above. I removed “floating”
where I underlined when I edited my post but “separated” was in there all along. :smile:

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@lkage, I’m holding you accountable, you started all of this! You had to use the trigger word! :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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Yeah, Simon, I just wish that there was some “pow” after the trigger…:crazy_face:

No. Isolated is another electrical term that is often misused by home inspectors.

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