electrical question??

| actually, just to clearify, I said that I had installed a red, black, and | white, and was questioning if a ground wire needed to be run. After | thinking about it I happened to think that a ground would not be needed | since the neutral and ground are bonded. Asked a electrician friend and | sure enough, no ground needed.

Whether a ground is needed depends on the equipment. If it has nothing for the ground wire to be connected to, then it doesn't need it. But if any wire is connected to the metallic chassis of the equipment, then it needs a ground wire that is separate from the neutral wire, unless it is not using the neutral wire for anything else and it is on a dedicated circuit (e.g. no other equipment on the same circuit that might have anything connected to the neutral wire). The point is so that if any power is introduced into the neutral wire by either that equipment or any other equipment anywhere, that power must first go to the point of bonding before coming back along the ground wire. If that is done, then any potential between neutral and earth ground will leak over to earth ground at the bonding point, and not introduce a potential between any chassis (properly connected to the ground wire) and earth ground on any circuit. If your electrician friend based what he said solely on there being a bond between neutral and ground, then I would say he does not understand why there is a separate ground wire system. But if he is aware of how the circuit and equipment is wired, he could be correct. But that statement should never be blanketly applied to other things.

Equipment that uses 240 volts only, and does not have any 120 volt parts, would not use the neutral wire. A typical clothes dryer does use 120 volts for the motor. A typical stove uses 120 volts for at least some things (and I have seen models that 120 volt elements, half on one side of the circuit, and half on the other side). But a typical air conditioner that is designed for 240 volts doesn't need 120 volts (and typically can't even getit because it is usually wired on a NEMA 6-15 or 6-20 receptacle/plug which doesn't have a neutral connection).