Another electric service to barn question

[techman]

Not sure about your local electrical code, but here in N.J. they follow NEC, and driving a 2nd ground rod at the barn would fail inspection. That would only be permissable if you had a seperate metered service on the barn fed directly from the power co. Otherwise you need 4 wire(2 hots, neutral and a ground)

Sorry but that is not true. NEC 250-24 specifies that a separate building can have its own ground rod and local ground.

paul

 

[WVBill]

I've built both a barn and a studio/workshop building and run power to both of them. I've researched this topic here on TBN, on several DIY message boards, on "For Electricians only" boards and on a board for building and electrical code professionals. Every possible combination of neutral, grounding, ground wires and grounding rods has been pronounced the absolutely only way to do it by numerous people in each of these forums.

What I've concluded is that the ONLY opinion that matters is the one given by the inspector who does your inspection.

When I wired the studio as I described above, I did not bond the neutral and the ground together in the panel out in the studio because I had read on several forums (for example one for Electricians by Mike Holt) that's the way to do it. When the inspector got there, he looked everything over then asked me for the bonding screw and screwed it into the panel and said "There you go - good job - now you pass".


WVBill