Quote:
Originally Posted by mike31154
I'll have to disagree with this particular statement. The neutral is a return for the hot wire and should not be considered as what is commonly referred to as a 'ground'. The ground in your residence is connected to a grounding stake or other approved method of providing an 'earth' potential. The neutral (white) goes back to your breaker panel and essentially back to the power provider.
If you take a peek inside a properly wired breaker panel, you will see that the ground wire terminals are separate entities from the neutral wires which are attached to one side of your circuit breakers.
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You can disagree with me if you want as it's only my opinion but I think they essentially both do the same thing, one is continuous and the other is only for emergencies. Both take the electricity away (flow through) from the unit to prevent it from over heating or becoming electrified and causing damage to the unit or the unfortunate person who touches it. As you stated one sends the power back to the breaker panel and then onto the grid so it can be sold again and the other sends it back to the breaker panel and then on to the earth were it is lost. I'm not an electrician by trade even though I work with it all the time and I'll have to ask one of my electricians but don't some breaker panels use the same bar for both the neutral and ground wires? Maybe this is old technology and not current code?
12-30-2010, 10:38 PM
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