SQLit wrote:
"the_tool_man" wrote in message
oups.com...

Hi all:

Six years ago, I built my workshop about 150ft from the house with
a 100A service. I ran a four-conductor cable to the subpanel in
the shop, and kept the ground and neutral conductors isolated from
each other. I did not bond the sub-panel ground to its own ground
rod, thinking it might cause a ground loop and/or noise in the
intercom circuit bewteen the buildings. More recently, when I put
in a spa with it's own GFCI breaker, I had several people advise me
to drive a separate ground rod for it, and that I should have done
the same for my workshop. So far, I have had no issues, but I want
to make sure I did the right thing.

My searches here have yielded many debates on the need to keep the
ground and neutral bonded only in the main panel and not the subs
(which is how I did it), but nothing about the ground rod question.
Does a remote subpanel need its own ground rod or not? Thanks in
advance, John.


Supplemental grounding gets tricky pretty fast. Excellent choice for
the 4 wire service to the garage. Now if you drive a ground rod at
the garage then the grounding conductor back to the service must be
of the same size as your service ground. If not you COULD have a
problem with an fault.... note could..

If he ran a 100A feeder to the garage panel, the grounding wire is at
least 6 gauge, and maybe 4. IIRC, #6 is the largest wire you are ever
required to use to connect a ground rod to the grounding electrode system.

I would probably drive a ground rod at the garage. I don't know if it
is required or not (but I think it is.) Since there's a seperate
grounding wire already, I don't think it's all that important.

Bob