Old code vs new

[theoldwizard1]

I had a new A/C installed and noticed something a little unusual.

The attached images show 2 meters, a disconnect, and some control boxes. The second meter from the right is the interrupt service meter and directly connected to the disconnect box.

In the second image, you can see that the neutral from from the is connected to the ground going to A/C unit. There is no ground rod or water pipe connection.


On a new installation, would the neutral/ground bonding bar be extended to accommodate a wire going to a ground rod ?

 

[Mustang51js]

Is the meter on the left coming from the output of the meter on the right, it may be and they had the meter to separate bills. As far as ground rods I would have to say no if the neutral is connected in the meter on the right. An example is if you do a two family house you only need one gec and ground rod set coming out of one panel,but you will have a jumper from one panel to another

 

[zmaxmotorsports]

Ive never seen one like that around here.

 

[Eriehunter]

Never have I seen one like that. Looks like they used SE cable to power the AC unit and the neutral in the SE cable is being used as the ground. It appears as they may have pulled the feeds for the AC Disconnect through the first meter ? Very unusual.

 

[brewchief]

I've seen plenty of those, most of the time there will be a ground wire at the ground lug in the disconnect going to the ground rods. I have seen it done exactly like this as well.

For those wondering there is a specific line in the MI code that allows this setup without grouping of the disconnects.

Power for the A/C is from the second meter, it's feed is the incoming lugs of the main meter so the power only goes through one meter.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Power for the A/C is from the second meter, it's feed is the incoming lugs of the main meter so the power only goes through one meter.

I kind of guessed that.

I've seen plenty of those, most of the time there will be a ground wire at the ground lug in the disconnect going to the ground rods. I have seen it done exactly like this as well.

Thanks ! This is pretty much what I thought.

This installation is over 20 years old, so it is covered by what the code was at that time.