Mixing up Neutrals

[Little Bill]

I was posed a question concerning getting neutrals mixed up between two panels. The scenario was adding a subpanel adjacent to the main panel. Then moving some circuits from the main over to the sub. What is the danger if you accidentally moved the wrong neutral(s) over to the sub? I couldn't think of any real danger, all I could think of was keeping the grounded, ungrounded, and egc grouped/run together. But, the neutral bars in each panel are tied together by the feeder neutral. Assume PVC was used to feed the conductors through.

 

[ptonsparky]

Only issue would be if someone can't find and disconnects the wrong one. That's likely to be someone that doesn't know any better anyway.

 

[qcroanoke]

Only issue would be if someone can't find and disconnects the wrong one. That's likely to be someone that doesn't know any better anyway.

If its romex thats pretty easy to find the neutral and ground.
If its conduits i would just move everything in the conduit to the new panel.

 

[hillbilly1]

On the older Generac transferswitchs that had the panel built in, none of the neutrals were moved, they just had a single large neutral from the Generac load center to the other panel. All of the circuit neutrals remained where they were originally terminated.

 

[James L]

If that subpanel ever has to be changed (which happens occasionally), and you unwittingly disconnect those neutrals when they have current on them, you can get blasted

 

[synchro]

I was posed a question concerning getting neutrals mixed up between two panels. The scenario was adding a subpanel adjacent to the main panel. Then moving some circuits from the main over to the sub. What is the danger if you accidentally moved the wrong neutral(s) over to the sub?

If that subpanel ever has to be changed (which happens occasionally), and you unwittingly disconnect those neutrals when they have current on them, you can get blasted

And if for some reason you want to shift some neutrals around on the bar in the subpanel (say to acommodate a wire that was shorter), then you could also get zapped if you disconnect a "wrong" neutral.

 

[djd]

If its romex thats pretty easy to find the neutral and ground.
If its conduits i would just move everything in the conduit to the new panel.

I would say first separate the ground and nuets in the panels , maybe tried find the one mixed up i`ve the same thing ; not bragging . It could reek havoc on the troubleshooting side .

 

[Barbqranch]

Recently I wanted to see which neutrals went w/ each circuit breaker. I was able to turn off all the breakers but the one I was interested in, and used a clamp on ammeter to locate the associated neutral.

 

[kwired]

Was replacing an old 1950 Frank Adams load center in a small hospital one time with a new QO panel in same position.

Had feeder to panel turned off and while disconnecting neutral conductors the corridor lights went off.

They were on an "emergency circuit" that was installed in the 1970's when an addition was built on. They apparently did not get the neutrals separated and back to the emergency panel.

Kind of connected it back the way it was at the time. There were plans to update quite a bit of things and this probably would have eventually gotten straightened out, but hospital ended up closing before much more updates was accomplished. They had more than just electrical things that needed updating to keep going, they put in new oxygen system, nurse call system and were working on HVAC required changes when they decided to close.