Wired my GEC out of the meter a few years back. I was working for Electric Medic. My supervisor was the owner of the company. After i finished my service, he told me i was wrong for coming out of the meter. I showed him the code and he got irate. The ego on some people is insane. Gotta know your code. ( I quit that evening )
@@MikeHoltNEC Hey Mike, I feel it necessary to just say that you are one of my heroes. You're probably one of the coolest people I've ever heard of in my lifetime. I feel honored that you appreciate my thinking and took time to reply. Thank you so much. You're one hell of a cool dude.
As an EIT early in my career, these quick snippets with code references are great, and super helpful. Grounding and bonding is by far, the biggest issue I see when conducting final punch inspections- even when we spell it out in our engineering documents.
Mr. Mike, thank you for the many years of quality education. I remember purchasing your electrical journeyman course in the early 90s. I still have the NEC tabbed book - the best education investment I ever made. God bless you back
Like Mike said it doesnt matter. However always be aware and pay attention. Ive seen so many make mistakes where there have been dual neutral paths installed. Some just dont understand.
Thank you sir. I gotta beg to differ on this one. At least in my area of upstate NY. Art 250.24(a)(1) states any "accessible point of the load end". Our utility considers utility meters non accessible and it is a felony to open meter cans as per the electrician and inspectors. Also if the neutral is lost on the line side of utility the grounding conductor becomes the neutral which energize all grounded equipment. At the first service disconnecting means in my opinion is the only safe option.
I terminate in the meter every time. I love how you explain grounding and bonding. This truly seems like the most misunderstood subject in the trade. At least where I’m located at.
Some utilities will not install a meter if you have a ground terminating in the meter can. I have had to run a conduit between a meter disconnect and service disconnect containing the gc because the utility inspector said he did not want to see a ground wire in his meter can.
Here in PR (US Territory NEC based), the Meter and the Service disconnect are combined into a single can per the local utility complementary code. So here the GEC always originates from the meter can 😅.
You can do either by code, but I always terminate in the disconnect or panel,so you don’t have to fuss with utility company to maintain the termination. Some require re-inspection to put a new seal on meter base.Thanks,Russ 29 years in the Electrical Trade
@@MikeHoltNEC Electricians do Mike, years later, because other knot-head Electricians don't Torque the terminations with a Torque Wrench properly and the problems show up years later. Who wants to deal with the Utility Company when they don't have to and inconvenience the customer even further? It takes too much time. Who does that? When is the last time you ever ran around in a van with a Service Electrician, Mike? OMG! Mike, I thought you were smarter than that!
On a muti-wire branch circuit. I understand that it is two ungrounded conductor, one grounded and one grounding conductor, for Romex or NM cable (single phase). They make a 14-2-2 or a 12-2-2, NM cable (amongst others I haven’t used most likely). This would take away the multi wire branch circuit aspect out. One guy I worked for like to use this style cable, and another told me it’s total junk. What are your thoughts?
I’ve also seen a 6 conductor MC cable for three phase application as well. I’m beginning to believe that no matter whether it is multi wire, or just 2 wire branch circuit there is still the difference in the unbalanced loads going on. It is between two cables as apposed to one cable on the ungrounded conductors. A 2 wire branch circuit protects from over voltage condition.
@@MikeHoltNEC It could be difficult to control what others do a lot of guys use the outlet terminals to jump out there outlets. Saves space in the box and you save the use of wire nuts. I’ve been put in the position to have to do it. Personal nothing beats spices and pig tails. I’d like to say just order deeper boxes. I figured out that if the neutral is open on a multiwire branch circuit, over voltage can happen because the output travels through the load and becomes input to another outlets grounded terminal. I had to draw this up to see how it could happen. So not the hard way lol As a side note Some of these new devices take up considerable box volume such as outlets with incorporated usb ports, and digital time clock switches. I think that they should be more than 2 deductions. It could be enticing to double tap the line side of a GFCI
What about bonding the neutral at the meter or disconnect? I mean, technically the meter is the first means of disconnect. But I see it differently everywhere I go
Service providers here told me the meter isn't a disconnecting means. Major caution -- IF there is an unbalanced load elsewhere from the Transformer and poor grounding (dry Summer soil) -- and the local Service Neutral is carrying some current and being grounded THROUGH the meter and the house ground -- when you pull the Meter out -- the NEUTRAL MAY BE "HOT." In the meter base -- from the Utility the Center / Ground / Neutral is hardwired through and DOES NOT "break" with the Un-Grounded Conductors. Had a joyful reminder of that the other day.
From a functional standpoint the electrons don't know where the disconnect is and sure don't know if it qualifies as a service disconnect or not. The important thing is only having one neutral -to-ground bond. The code just standardizes where that bond is.
If the installation of the GEC is at the meter, then how many cables are going to the main panel? If the meter has no disconnect? Where is the bonding made ?
It matters a whole bunch how the utility likes it done, because regardless of what the inspector thinks the utility won't set the meter until it is done to their satisfaction. In my state our largest utility varies on this from one area to another! In some areas, if you don't ground the neutral in the meter can they won't set the meter, in other areas they won't set the meter if you do. Same utility, different zone. It's the craziest thing ever. Personally I wish the NEC would just specify it in the first means of disconnect and clear all of this up because I'm also tired of explaining why I didn't ground in the transformer to ignorant inspectors. Why do I prefer to do it in the disconnect? Because it can be safely verified without shutting down the system, it is far too dangerous to open the transformer while it is energized. If I then teach my electricians to terminate grounding on the neutral bus in the first means we avoid a lot of issues, like needing a wire or bus bar connection for GEC to neutral and not enclosure continuity.
It's like Apple versus IBM, Men versus Women, Chevy versus Truck, iPhone versus Galaxy... I personally would make the connection to whatever location is the most convenient. There is no safety issue at all. How about teach them the Code and not your preference, this give them the knowledge to apply the NEC as needed.
We need to know the NEC, we have no clue in advance what the inspector will want. Some know the Code and don't care the location, some require the disconnect, others required the meter. Let's start with knowing the Code.
@@waidushughes5198 well, the path to the earth is right there at the meter in that scenario, which is what you want, but more importantly, the grounding electrode system only exists to assist with lightning dissipation. If there's a fault in the home the fault current is on its way via a low impedance path back to its source, which is you guys and your neutral. Mike has a lot of good videos on that subject. I do a lot of technical writing in my job and I think a lot about how to effectively communicate concepts with word choice. I think there is confusion because there are two separate concepts that both contain the word "ground" and are easy to confuse. If I could rewrite the electrical code from scratch I'd probably call the grounding electrode system the "lightning clearance system" and the equipment grounding and bonding system the "fault clearance system". All electricity in a circuit is trying to find its way back to the source. For metered electricity from the POCO, the source is the transformer (well, the generation facility, but effectively derived at the transformer). For lightning the source is the earth and we are driving a ground rod to complete the circuit from the earth to the sky and back instead of having our entire building act like a loose neutral with a potential of a few hundred million volts.
@@waidushughes5198 not sure where my longer comment went but a fault current always travels back on the utility neutral. The grounding electrode doesn't do anything to clear the fault. It's just there to dissipate lightning.
@vitamaltz lighting strike occurs we do want that voltage to use our system for primary travel. If your system fails, we don't want our neutral to be the only path back. You can check aes goldbook standards for further clarity.
