Electrical Question

[ChrisB2]

We had a hot tub with electrical coming from 6/3 wire on a 50A breaker in the main panel in the house. Now I am putting in (2) 20A outlets where the hot tub used to be. I added an outdoor load center fed by the 6/3 wire and will put in 20A breakers to feed the new outlets (I need 2 separate circuits) which will be fed with 12/2 wire.

The new load center box does not come with a grounding bar, I purchased one and put in the load center with the intention of connecting it with the incoming 6 gauge ground wire and the ground wires from each outlet. My question is do I need to have a ground rod by the load center also, or is having everything tied together to the main ground for the house acceptable?

Hope that makes sense. Thanks in advance.

edit: The hot tub was wired to a "spa panel" and did not have any additional grounding. So after thinking about it I'm guessing I would be fine without the added ground rod. But would like to make sure.

 

[Lucky]

I'm going to assume hot tub is 220vac? Ideally you should have 4 wires to the outdoor load center. 2 hots, a nuetral, and a ground. Also the nuetral and grounds shouldn't be connected in this box and the nuetral/ground bus bonding screw removed. The only problem with tieing the 6/3 ground with the nuetral is you will have some voltage on your ground at the added circuits.

If you only want 2 120vac circuits you can use the existing conductors as a hot, nuetral, and ground but this will require moving one of the wires from the breaker to the nuetral/ground bus in the panel and possibly adding a jumper for the hot bus in the outdoor load center.

I'm having the same issue with a service to our horse barn. If I decide to run 120v I'll move a wire in the main panel, but if we go 220v I plan on running a ground rod at the panel in the barn. Everything will work fine without running a ground at all but being outside there's a good chance someone could get a tingle during wet weather. Hopefully others will chime in on this.

 

[Dsth]

you can buy 12/2 wire without the ground or 12/2 w ground. sounds like you probably know that but I want to make sure. if you are adding 2 120V outlets the ground and neutral will eventually get connected to the same grounding bar. code says it must be in the main panel coming into the structure. you will want to make sure no 220V outlets are in the circuit or you will have the problem Lucky is talking about and wires are all connected properly going through the panels. is very unusual to buy any electrical box without a neutral bar.

 

[cowman82]

having it tied to the house ground is fine.

 

[greybeard]

having it tied to the house ground is fine.

Maybe. It 'can' cause problems if there are any 120v GFCI outlets involved. I'm pretty sure NEC still requires all sub panels located away from main panel to have their own ground rods.
but...
I do not like to run outbuilding grounds wire back to home ground rods. IF, you lose your house ground somehow, the only ground for the house's current would be to the outbuilding's ground rod and many outbuildings have a smaller size wire than the home's ground wire to the rod would be, therefore couldn't carry the full load which the ground rod's wire is supposed to be able to do.

If you are converting 240V service to 120v service, you'll need a neutral of course. You cannot use ground for neutral. They are to be bonded together only at 'first means of disconnect', which is usually at the house main disconnect.


The hot tub should have already had it's own ground rod, as all hot tubs, saunas and swimming pool pumps/lights are required to have their own ground rods IF located within their own structure or a ways away from the main panel..

 

[Lucky]

@greybeard ... Very good post. I didn't think about it and it's hard to say without pics but if the existing 6/3 is romex and the ground conductor is a bare copper wire he will definitely need to move one of the hots off the breaker in the house panel to the nuetral bus. This would probably be the safest thing to do regardless.

When the contractor ran the service to our hot tub he ran 2 #6 wires and a #10 for a ground. He installed a gfci in the breaker panel but I still never really right about not having a ground rod at the hot tub. We are planning on getting rid of the hot tub and building an outdoor kitchen and I plan on moving the wires in the main panel and having 120vac at the kitchen instead of 220vac. Sub panels get a little tricky on how to ground and why.

 

[cowman82]

Maybe. It 'can' cause problems if there are any 120v GFCI outlets involved. I'm pretty sure NEC still requires all sub panels located away from main panel to have their own ground rods.
but...
I do not like to run outbuilding grounds wire back to home ground rods. IF, you lose your house ground somehow, the only ground for the house's current would be to the outbuilding's ground rod and many outbuildings have a smaller size wire than the home's ground wire to the rod would be, therefore couldn't carry the full load which the ground rod's wire is supposed to be able to do.

If you are converting 240V service to 120v service, you'll need a neutral of course. You cannot use ground for neutral. They are to be bonded together only at 'first means of disconnect', which is usually at the house main disconnect.


The hot tub should have already had it's own ground rod, as all hot tubs, saunas and swimming pool pumps/lights are required to have their own ground rods IF located within their own structure or a ways away from the main panel..

per code, if its outside of the building of the main panel then it does need its own ground. any outbuildings would need one as well. I just said it would work and be fine. I doubt he's getting it inspected. Most of the time its cheaper to run a new ground than to buy a 4 plex wire, but since he already had the wiring there, just hook it up and go.

 

[ChrisB2]

Well, I got everything wired up without a separate ground rod but I think I'll have somebody smarter than me take a look at it before I consider it finished. The hot tub was hooked up by a licensed electrician and it didn't have a ground rod. So I'm not sure if that was up to code or not. But I thank you guys for helping (and confusing) me.

 

[cowman82]

Well, I got everything wired up without a separate ground rod but I think I'll have somebody smarter than me take a look at it before I consider it finished. The hot tub was hooked up by a licensed electrician and it didn't have a ground rod. So I'm not sure if that was up to code or not. But I thank you guys for helping (and confusing) me.

electric codes are pretty crazy. You don't see separate ground rods on hot tubs, AC units, etc. attached to the main building. The reason you need the load centers outside near the outside units your powering are there incase you need to turn them off quickly. A ground rod 10' ft closer than the house ground isn't going to make any difference.