Electrical advice wiring an outbuilding

[Jaybird1980]

This is pretty much my first thought on how to do the job. I ran electric to a garage before but that was 25 years ago and my memory is not much over a week ago. When I did I included a ground rod at the garage but also connected the neutral and ground to the same buss. Back then I had a wiring book but don't remember what it said about that and no longer have the book. It could have changed in those years or I could have missed it. Must not have been too out of whack because everything still worked fine when we sold out and moved. Jim.

Everything will appear to work normally if the neutrals and grounds are together in a sub. The problem is that if there was a ground fault occurrence the neutrals would then become hot. Also you would have potential problems with GFCI plug usage

 

[radar8756]

The National Electrical Code say you need one.
View attachment 129799

I see the MAIN on the left has a Connection between Neutral bar and Ground bar --- where the Sub Panel on the right does Not ??

 

[Jaybird1980]

I see the MAIN on the left has a Connection between Neutral bar and Ground bar --- where the Sub Panel on the right does Not ??

Correct. The neutrals and the grounds need to be sperate in the sub panel. The bar you see is a bonding strap, removing the strap removes the connection between the two bus bars.

It should be noted that many companies use the panel box itself as the connection, there will be a bonding screw in this case that will connect the neutral bar to the case of the sub panel. So to separate in that case you simply remove the bonding screw.