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(snip) from Arild
It is my personal observation that many local codes allow white neutral and
green ground wires to be mixed at the main electrical panel.
(endsnip)
Actually, many codes REQUIRE it...though not directly...usually the
greens(or bare)and whites are not mixed on the same bus...BUT the earth
ground bus (green equivelent) and the neutral bus (white) are bonded
together at the main panel.
As a commercial electrician and electrical engineer (previous carreer...I be
a computer geek now) I have never agreed with this practice or found any
valid reason for it. In fact it is downright scary...I have personally
encountered situations where due to a bad/missing neutral connection on the
grid, that the "neutral" for an entire block was actually grounding through
the bonds to the earth grounds...fine and good, except that the earth
grounds were not perfect and so there was now significant potential between
the earth ground circuits and a real solid ground. If you happened to find a
better ground than the non-perfect earth grounds, this made things like the
metal cases on power tools, washing machines and the like "hot"...and also
made some plumbing and plumbing fixtures "hot" as earth grounds are often
(usually) hooked to the plumbing in homes. Legacy standards perpuated and
enforced by those that have absolutely no understanding of the principles
involved and blind adherance to them is one of the reasons I got out of
commercial electrical work...
Anyway...this is the long-winded way of saying Arild's comment about wierd
current flows is right on...even if your stuff is wired to "standard". The
situation is not any better in the marine world...those of us with metal
boats would be wise to look the ABYC's electrial standards and then flee in
terror......
CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer
44' Steel Rhodes Virginia Reel Project
http://cuagain.manilasites.com
Author: "Life is a Road, the Soul is a Motorcycle"
http://lifeisaroad.home.comcast.net
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