Frank -
I forgot to finish what I asked about your connection between the house and
the barn. I assume you DID NOT carry the ground out to the barn and connect
the grounds (house and barn) together. In some places it's permissible to
just carry the ground (separate wire from the neutral) to the subpanel amd let
that be the ground with no ground rod. I think some circumstances might
require this, and in installing a subpanel within the same building it makes
sense.
However, with a completely separate building, I believe you should be best off
with a separate ground and DON'T connect the two grounds (house and barn)
together. The theory there is that there should be no potential between your
electrical ground and a person who is physically grounded to the actual
ground. If for some reason ground at the house is at a slightly different
potential than at the barn (not common but possible), then carrying the house
ground out to the barn would allow some slight potential between the
electrical ground in the barn and the actual ground there, and thus a
possibility of shock. If you connect the grounds and also have ground rods at
both places, the ground wire will carry some current all the time, which isn't
proper.
Knowing your local codes would help you on this, but since the inspector
apparently was expecting to see a separate ground in the barn that's probably
what your code calls for. Again, it's the most common, and what I do in that
circumstance.
Karl
_______________________________________________
Support Team.Net http://www.team.net/donate.html
Shop-talk mailing list
http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo/shop-talk
http://www.team.net/archive
|