Neutal Bus

Your cabinet guy is right. The panel in your house is a sub and it must have separate ground and neutral busses along with a separate ground wire.

| I upgraded to 200 amp service at my home. Since my main panel is more than | 10 feet from the place it enters the house, I had to add a 200 amp | interrupt. I grounded the interrupt to an 8 ft grounding rod. I then ran | two hots and a neutral to the main panel 45 feet away. I see the neutral | which is connected to ground at the interrupt as sufficient grounding at the | main panel. (I have left the netral bus in the main panel). My kitchen | cabinet man insists it is not a "safe setup". He says run a separate ground | back to the interrupt. There is no local code. Any advice?

He is correct. You need to run a separate ground wire from the main breaker or disconnect, and keep the neutral bus bar and the ground bus bar in the subpanel (that is what it is now) separate. You're setting yourself up for voltage on the ground wire the way you have it. Get it fixed.

Just curious: in past times it was common to see someone upgrade their service and have the old service panel be fed from a breaker in the new panel.

Is there any exception today that permits on to "feed" an existing service panel without converting it to a proper sub panel with separate ground and neutral busses?

EMWTK

Nope. That is part of the cost of doing this. In some cases it is trivial, in others it is virtually impossible without a lot of splicing and moving wires. A lot depends on the work of the original installer and everyone who was in there since.

No exception. Once it becomes a sub-panel, the N & G must be separated. It might be as easy as removing a bonding screw or jumper. Otherwise, you must install an insulated neutral buss.

Ben Miller