About David Coil/C. R. Construction Expertise I can help with most any trouble shooting question. KISS is the program..keep it simple stupid. I do my best to simplify the answer.
Experience 40 yrs experience in ALL Construction trades. Kit, bath and all kinds of remodels.
I have moved into a new home. New to me but built in 1990 and an extension added in 1999. I checked the circuit breaker panel in the extension and found it more than a bit confusing. (The reason that I looked at the panel was that I was missing grounds on two circuits and I wanted to see if the grounds were not connected at the panel. I will discuss this later.) I had read a book on electrical wiring and had expected to see the circuit breakers in the center with a bus bar down one side for the neutral and a bus down the other side for the grounds. Instead what I saw was a circuit breaker panel that must have come from salvage, very old, very dirty, but I assume workable. Along the right side was a bus bar with all of the grounds and all of the neutral wires attached to the one bus. I had thought that they had to be separate but in further reading I read that both bus bars must be grounded to the cabinet, which would, I believe, connect both of the bus's?
So my 1st question is; is this wired OK or will I have to add a bus and separate the ground and the neutral wires?
Then getting back to the two circuits where the outlets all have an open ground. I check a couple of these and the grounds were connected, then I went to what I thought would the first outlets where the wire comes up from the circuit breaker box and I found that the grounds were not connected. They were in fact cut back to the wire insulation. Almost as though it was intentional. I will try to extend these with wire nuts and connect them. My 2nd question is do you know of any reason why someone would cut these off?
The job was very sloppy with very old and in some cases dirty outlets, one was even mounted upside down. Also in other circuits I have found crossed grounds and neutral.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Tom
Answer You are experiencing the "owner builder" type construction. Some things dont get inspected, or permited. If they used the old 2 prong outlet, they would cut the bare ground off to remove it from site. If a GFCI circuit is needed, the grounds are then divided, bare separate from neutral. It is a functional situation, but obviously not correct.
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