Electrical question

[Tom M King]

One thing you absolutely don't want is multiple, separate grounds in a system. All the grounds need to be tied together (bonded).

[Charlie Velasquez]

One thing you absolutely don't want is multiple, separate grounds in a system. All the grounds need to be tied together (bonded).

?? Just trying to visualize the layout.
His main panel will have a grounding electrode of some sort at his house. And it sounds like he has a sub panel in his workshop. We don’t know if his workshop is attached or detached, so it is possible he could have another set of electrodes at his workshop.

He wants to install a sub panel “way down by the river” minus 50’. This sub panel will need to have an equipment ground conductor from the workshop sub panel, that should have an equipment ground conductor from the main panel; plus it’s own river sub panel grounding electrode system, possibly hundreds of feet away from the workshop.
The river sub panel’s grounding electrode system‘s conductor will land on the equipment grounding bar in the sub panel, as will the equipment grounding conductor from the workshop sub which originates from main, but he won’t bond the rods at the river location with the main house rods in the traditional sense, will he?

I am thinking it should look like this, shouldn’t it?


3E3AA513-89B9-449B-BEAB-898DC4C10089.jpg

[Tom M King]

Yes, with that continuous green conductor, that will be fine. I read it in one post that there were not enough conductors to include a ground wire running from one place to the other. I may have misread it, but all sorts of strange things can happen with separate grounds.

Edited to add: Maybe it would be clearer if I said, "separated grounds".

[George Yetka]

Why do you want to do this?

It may be cheaper to run a new 15/20 amp 100 circuit down.

[Bob Cooper]

Yes I believe it’s all moot since it’s a 6-2 running from the shop to the river. So there’s really no way to put a sub panel
down there without running a new conductor. Wish I would have thought of that earlier. What got my curiousity going was kind of confusing the purpose of the ground rod vs the return. Yes they are both at ground potential but one needs that conductor there to cause the breaker to trip should a short occur.