jay040 said:
Thanks for all of y'alls help in preventing me from killing myself. Along that line, I have some more questions.
In my main panel, there is some large object (see red arrow) blocking the free holes on the bus bar. I don't know what it is. I'm assuming that I can't put both the neutral (white) and grounding wire on the same bus? image
I went ahead and opened up the sub-panel in my garage to see if I could run the wire through the attic in case my main panel was a no-go, and it appears that on the left bus bar, they have multiple neutral wires in the same holes, but lots of open on the right bus bar where the grounding wires are. Is it safe to put multiple neutral (white wires in the same bus hole? image
Jay, in order for me to respond with confidence, can you get a pic of both panels from a distance a little further back so I can properly trace the wiring as too much is cropped off in the exiting pics to adequately trace them?
I'll give you a response the best I can based on what I can tell and will differ to UnderoosAg for a ruling on this as he's the expert, but here goes!
As far as the large object, if I'm not mistaken that is a bonding block connected to your neutral buss that connects (bonds) both your neutral buss and your ground buss together for the feed to your sub-panel in the garage. UnderoosAg????
Since this is your main panel, you can put both the neutral and ground wires on the same buss...but only in the main panel. The following link provides further information to that effect:
Is it ok to have mixed grounds and neutrals on bars in a breaker box?Based on that and the fact that you have multiple open slots available on the buss bar on the right side of your panel, you have adequate slots to make your A/C feed over breaker connection within this panel.
Now as far as your second question, no it is not safe to put mutiple neutral wires in the same buss hole, also known as double lugging. Reason being that the neutral wires could eventually come loose enough to heat up and cause a fire...therefore it's against Code to do so, even though it was done like that many years ago before Code made it a No No, and therefore it's probably one of the most written up issues found during home inspections. You can double lug the grounds but not the neutrals.
In order to resolve the netrual double lugging issue (and correct me if I'm wrong on this UnderoosAg) remove both double lugged wires from the slot, pigtail them together with a proper pigtail and then connect the pigtail end into the open hole and you're good to go!
Also note that by Code, you cannot put both the neutral and ground wires on the same buss within any sub-panels, only the main panel. You have to keep the neutrals on the neutral buss bar and the ground wires on the ground buss bar in sub-panels. This was also addressed in the link above.
Hope this helps and UnderoosAg, please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this! TIA