I have 3 stiuations: existing 2 pole outlets with 2 conductor romax, added 3 pole outlets some with no ground conductor,some with ground wire romax. The distribution box has no ground buss, the ground wire romax has the ground tied to the neutral buss which is grounded to a cold water pipe (house is plumbed entirely in copper with jumper at water meter). Can I add a ground buss tie it to the water line and remove the neutral to water line tie or do I need to drive a ground rod to tie the ground buss to?
I realize that the ground wires tied to the nuetral buss are a violation and intend to relocate them to a seperate ground buss adding a new distributon box if I must.
sorry about the duplicat post when reading first post it was full of typos and didn’t fully explain the situation.
Replies
Post this over in the General Discussion. This space just talks about how to impove the forum itself.
Actually, at the time that house was built it was legal to have a shared ground/neutral bus, if the panel was where the ground and neutral were "bonded". I think it's only been the past ten years or so that the two are required to be separate.
But it would be wise to separate the two if you can manage, especially if you're going to add more grounded circuits.
But you must have the ground and neutral "bonded" (tied together) somewhere -- basically at the point closest to the service entry. Generally this is either in the breaker panel or in a disconnect box between the breaker panel and the meter.
You can still have the grounds and neutrals on the neutral bus if this is where the service disconnect is.