2 ground bars in subpanel?

[Jeff590]

Starting the wiring for my garage and have a have a question related to ground bars. Since my panel (a Square D Homeline 100 Amp 20-Space 40-Circuit) did not come with a ground bar, I bought one and installed it on the right side. But now pulling the wire, it would be neater to have a second ground bar on the left side instead of running the grounds all the way over to the right. What is typically done here? Does it really matter or is it just personal preference?

 

[pattenp]

You can add a second ground bar if you like. Even though the second bar is bonded by being screwed to the box I recommend a jumper bond wire of #6 Cu between the bars.

 

[n20junkie]

I just have one ground, one neutral. Leave enough wire when you pull so you can cross neutral and ground wires from side to side. If you do it neatly, it looks great.

Really to do what your thinking, you would need another ground and neutral bar to keep wires from having to cross over, and that is just getting way too complicated for something that gets covered up anyway.

 

[sberry]

I just did one, I added a second bar due to the congestion. It really saved a lot of routing work and all the circuits in it are 20, I did hook both together with a 12 around the bottom out of the way.

 

[Jeff590]

Forgot to mention - there are already 2 neutral bars on each side, that's why I was thinking of adding a second ground bar.

 

[sberry]

Its 10 extra bucks but can really make things easier, neater and safer in some sense there doesn't need to be a lot of extra wire springing around a panel. Less to route other wires around.

 

[prostreetamx]

When we added separate ground bars on 100a and bigger panels we always used #4 bare copper to join them.

 

[casmurbax]

Maybe I missed it, What size wire did you run from the house to the garage?

I only ask because I don't think if you ran 4 wire from the main panel to the garage the neutral bar is not grounded to the box using the bonding screw.... If a 3 wire was used then its a different story, again I am no expert on this subject.

I am no expert in this but I do believe there is a specific way the grounding/neutral bars are mounted and used based upon how many wires were used from main to the sub panel.

 

[mm08822]

A second ground bar is optional but could make for cleaner routing of conductors. Your preference.
If the grd bar you purchase is listed for the panel it typically does not need a jumper to the original grd bar. There is nothing wrong at all with addind a jumper between the two. If I were adding the jumper, I would use the same size as egc supplied to the panel. Bigger is ok too.

 

[JRC3]

You can add a second ground bar if you like. Even though the second bar is bonded by being screwed to the box I recommend a jumper bond wire of #6 Cu between the bars.

When I had my foreclosure inspected to get service restored the inspector had me add a small ground bar and jump it as you described.