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Originally posted by Excam_Man:
*I'm one which will not have a refrigerator or freezer on a gfci.

In the past, I have felt the same way. In fact, my fridge is on a circuit with an receptacle in the laundry. I originally pigtailed around the fridge, and used a GFCI receptacle in for that one receptacle in the laundry. It's just an outlet that isn't used for anything but charging the vacuum, but it's within six feet of a sink.

I later just put in the dual function breaker to see how it would do. Its been there for four months now, without a single nuisance trip. Like I said earlier, I wonder if the newer breakers and appliances have overcome the tripping problems caused by earlier generation equipment. We'll see as everything ages.

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It can be harder to see since it's below everything. It's a piece of 6awg solid. Here's where it lands in the new sub.

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It can be harder to see since it's below everything. It's a piece of 6awg solid. Here's where it lands in the new sub.

Nice.

They fail you around here for using drywall screws to support the panel where I live. They also may question why you chose to put ground bar on top of a label.

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Originally posted by Skins2881:

Nice.

They fail you around here for using drywall screws to support the panel where I live. They also may question why you chose to put ground bar on top of a label.

Thanks for commenting on my install. I appreciate your input.

Those Square D panels are painted quite thickly. Do they make you strip the paint down a bit before you mount a ground bar? I thought the bond is provided through the screws into the panel. Removing the label seems like a strange requirement since the mfg put it there specifically where the ground mounts, with no instructions to remove it, and it is UL listed like it is. Also, the bonding screw on a main panel makes the bond with nothing but the screw through the neutral bus and the cabinet. Is it supposed to bond through bare metal contact as well as the screw itself?

WRT the drywall screws, what type of screw do they require in your area? I’m unaware of any specific screw for mounting, only that the panel cover must be retained with a flat, non-piercing screw. I’ve seen panels mounted with nails in some of my properties. In one place I used Tapcons on a concrete wall and the inspector was good with it. I have some other, more hefty screws, but I’ve seen nothing listed specifically for panel mounting. I think they are basically coated deck screws.

IIRC, VA is an IRC governed state, right? Maybe there’s requirements there of which I’m unaware. Utah is an NEC state. I’ve never really bothered looking at the IRC. Is it basically the same as the NEC for most purposes?

Since you added several circuits did you think about increasing the size of the service run and the main breaker?

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Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

Nice.

They fail you around here for using drywall screws to support the panel where I live. They also may question why you chose to put ground bar on top of a label.

Thanks for commenting on my install. I appreciate your input.

Those Square D panels are painted quite thickly. Do they make you strip the paint down a bit before you mount a ground bar? I thought the bond is provided through the screws into the panel. Removing the label seems like a strange requirement since the mfg put it there specifically where the ground mounts, with no instructions to remove it, and it is UL listed like it is. Also, the bonding screw on a main panel makes the bond with nothing but the screw through the neutral bus and the cabinet. Is it supposed to bond through bare metal contact as well as the screw itself?

WRT the drywall screws, what type of screw do they require in your area? I’m unaware of any specific screw for mounting, only that the panel cover must be retained with a flat, non-piercing screw. I’ve seen panels mounted with nails in some of my properties. In one place I used Tapcons on a concrete wall and the inspector was good with it. I have some other, more hefty screws, but I’ve seen nothing listed specifically for panel mounting. I think they are basically coated deck screws.

IIRC, VA is an IRC governed state, right? Maybe there’s requirements there of which I’m unaware. Utah is an NEC state. I’ve never really bothered looking at the IRC. Is it basically the same as the NEC for most purposes?

The holes you used were likely for a different configuration of that enclosure, they use the same enclosure for many different installations. There should be holes punched through the enclosure, you would tap those holes. There was likely other sets of holes elsewhere. If the ground bar is using threaded connection I two threads are required minimum (used to be three), 250.8(a) which you can't get through a hole that hasn't been punched through the enclosure. In that case you would be drill through the enclosure and be required to remove paint and use a nut and bolt to attach it with. It is always preferred to follow any instructions from the manufacture and use their ground bars in their panels. You should not remove any stickers ever, and would probably get questioned as why there was no other option to go in that one spot, or possibly just fail you. Depends on inspector and his mood that day.

Wood screws are the appropriate screw for attaching things to wood. Drywall screws are appropriate for hanging drywall. I can't point to any specific code reference, but the code is left to the interpretation of the AHJ and 110.3(b) would be probably what they would cite. I know it's an instant fail here. I use 1.5" Zinc coated #10 wood screws.

Virginia uses Virginia Residential Code which is derived from the IRC which is derived from the NEC. Each jurisdiction takes bits and pieces and from everything, puts it's spin on it, and then the inspector adds his own bias/opinion to it. So I'd train people to the whims of the most restrictive counties Loudoun and Prince William counties that way you were all but guaranteed to pass anywhere. It's was always cheaper to just go above and beyond, even if there was no basis in the policy because it's costs all of your profit if you need to return to a job to fix something that probably didn't need fixing to begin with. Additionally you would lose credibility with the home owner since they don't understand the nuance and interpretation involved with the electrical codes, they just want to know why it didn't pass the first time. Also if you chose to fight it you waste enough time to lose that jobs profit as well as the next jobs profit.

You asked for critique, I am coming up with the best I can. What was up with the 40a breaker with the the #10 or #12 wires attached to it? Why is one of the wires white?

^^Thanks for your insights. The only electrical I’ve done in Virginia was with my Dad as a youngster and recently with my brother, both in Roanoke Co. Probably a little less uptight than over your way. Funny story. Dad built the house in 1977 and got a temporary occupancy permit that hung in the front window until 2015 when he passed away. My brother went down to the county to schedule a final inspection so he could probate the place, and the county just gave him a permanent occupancy permit, with an incredulous look on their face. Dad waited them out and won.

The 40a breaker you tagged is wired with 8ga. It comes up from the bottom of the panel and serves the basement oven. That older Homeline panel has a neutral bus that goes halfway down both sides, so I think what you’re seeing is a 12ga wire from a different circuit that was landed near that breaker. If you look at the very first pic in this thread, you can see the panel before it was changed, as it was when I purchased the house, and you can see the 8ga cable. The pic you highlighted was a bit after I was changing things, after I had added most of the dual function breakers and moved those 240v breakers down two spaces to install the SPD. Perhaps the 12 ga wire you see is one of the pigtails off one of those other breakers? That panel was pre-PON, so every breaker had to have a pigtail. That’s all changed now anyway since those 40a breakers are now pigtailed GFCI breakers. I tried to bring all the pigtails up towards the top in the clear, but some breakers already had shortened pigtails, so they were landed beneath some other breakers.

Thanks for the code references. I’ll have to check the ground bar since some Square D uses just one tapped screw. Can I tap another in the box and run a jumper, or does it have to tap through the grounding bar?

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Thanks for the code references. I’ll have to check the ground bar since some Square D uses just one tapped screw. Can I tap another in the box and run a jumper, or does it have to tap through the grounding bar?

There was nothing I saw there that requires changes. I was being as nit picky as possible, just because you asked for some Monday morning quarterbacking. If the ground bar only came with one screw I would add a second screw if it had a second hole through the ground bar. You can't use self tappers, it must be tapped into the enclosure if you wanted a second screw or it would require a nut and bolt. It's only there for fault detection, there is no current going through there, especially since they are all 120v circuits. So I wouldn't waste any energy on it. If you wanted to be really sure with out a lot of work, just run a jumper of #6 from ground bar to ground bar, that way you aren't using the steel enclosure for passing the bond/ground through. Also you would then have one screw from each ground bar threaded through the punched holes ending up with two points of contact through the enclosure.