Retired Senior

[RetiredSenior]

Will Prowse if you could give me you input I would greatly appreciate it.
WILL, My main power is on the left side,, my auxiliary panel that’s connected to the inverter is on the right side, I am back feeding the wires from my inverter auxiliary panel to the main panel circuit breaker wires,, which means that I would have to shut off all the breakers in the main panel from the power source in order to feed the wires from my auxiliary to the house wires! In my mind, I am providing the hot power from the inverter and auxiliary panel to the wires only in the main panel ,,, I so far have not connected a neutral wire from my inverter/auxiliary panel to the main,, as you see I have two wires ready to install into the mains neutral if this is correct ? Can you please advise me if this neutral wire is needed from the auxiliary panel ? Also the ac 240 input on the inverter has line 1 and 2 and shows ground, my feed from the main panel is 2 / 30 amp breakers the does the 3 rd wire go to a ground on the panel? I see that the wiring from the neutral goes out of the box to the water pipe assuming that it’ was built that way many years ago, do I tie into the neutral bar with that ground wire for the inverter ?

 

[Ampster]

This looks very similar to another thread where @FilterGuy told you that without an interlock this was a dangerous setup. Has anything changed?

 

[Quattrohead]

That looks like a disaster that just found a place to happen.

 

[Mattb4]

Please find a qualified electrician to go through your panels and ensure they are wired correctly. From what I can see of your pictures I would never be able to determine if what you are planning is even workable.

 

[Mike 134]

Unless I was paid to rewire your entire house on a time and material basis I'd walk away from that job.
Yours is a good example of why I sometimes turn down jobs.

 

[SunFarmer]

Oh jeez, get out now!

 

[DougfromdaUP]

The panels might be salvageable but make sure you get rid of the kinked conduit. Who would even put that in?

 

[rodrick]

A 100 amp panel totally full with many breakers feeding 2 circuits, yea not in any of my buildings

 

[Mattb4]

Here's my suggestion if you are dead set on doing this yourself. Remove all wires that you added to your main panel to setup an alternative power system. Post a picture of your main panel then and let us see if it looks OK first. Now tell us what it is you intend to do with wiring up your sub panel. if ti is to supply critical loads only you do not need to feed it from teh Main if your Inverter has a ATS built in. If you do want to back feed the main from it you will need a path (panel breaker) and proper interlocks or transfer switches to accomplish.

As it stands now it looks like you are going to end up with a forced parallel of 2 power sources.

I am posting a simple block diagram to show sequence of a standard setup (not back feeding Main).

 

[Ampster]

Here's my suggestion

It really is very simple when one looks at it from that perspective. It is also exponentially much safer. We don't know what kind of inverter @RetiredSenior has but it may contain an automatic transfer switch.

 

[Bud Martin]

I cannot figure why there are so many White wires (Neutral) connected to the circuit breakers.

 

[Mattb4]

I cannot figure why there are so many White wires (Neutral) connected to the circuit breakers.

It is a hard one to figure (white should not be used for power without marking it properly and even than should be avoided) as well as there being two wires to a lot of breakers. The best I can figure is Mr. Senior is attempting to power each individual load from both grid and his alternative power supply instead of simply energizing the Main panel's bus bars with one 240v breaker from back feed.

Normally when you decide to rewire to the critical load panel you would remove the circuit's power wire from the breaker in the Main panel and route it to a breaker in the critical load panel. Since the wire is not long enough you need to wire nut it to a wire going to it's new breaker in the sub panel (or use a Wago style connector). The old breaker in the Main panel is now just a spare unused breaker.

So unless I am wrong he has two breakers feeding the same circuit separated in different panels.

 

[Texican]

It is a hard one to figure (white should not be used for power without marking it properly and even than should be avoided) as well as there being two wires to a lot of breakers. The best I can figure is Mr. Senior is attempting to power each individual load from both grid and his alternative power supply instead of simply energizing the Main panel's bus bars with one 240v breaker from back feed.

Normally when you decide to rewire to the critical load panel you would remove the circuit's power wire from the breaker in the Main panel and route it to a breaker in the critical load panel. Since the wire is not long enough you need to wire nut it to a wire going to it's new breaker in the sub panel (or use a Wago style connector). The old breaker in the Main panel is now just a spare unused breaker.

So unless I am wrong he has two breakers feeding the same circuit separated in different panels.

I suspect you are correct, an effort to have dual sources of power
I think he wired every circuit breaker in the main panel with an extra wire coming from the sub panel, I guess the plan would be that you could turn off the breaker in the main panel, and turn on the breaker in the sub panel and even with the CB in the main panel off, the circuit would be powered by the sub.
a frankenstein for sure

 

[Nobodybusiness]

Will Prowse if you could give me you input I would greatly appreciate it.
WILL, My main power is on the left side,, my auxiliary panel that’s connected to the inverter is on the right side, I am back feeding the wires from my inverter auxiliary panel to the main panel circuit breaker wires,, which means that I would have to shut off all the breakers in the main panel from the power source in order to feed the wires from my auxiliary to the house wires! In my mind, I am providing the hot power from the inverter and auxiliary panel to the wires only in the main panel ,,, I so far have not connected a neutral wire from my inverter/auxiliary panel to the main,, as you see I have two wires ready to install into the mains neutral if this is correct ? Can you please advise me if this neutral wire is needed from the auxiliary panel ? Also the ac 240 input on the inverter has line 1 and 2 and shows ground, my feed from the main panel is 2 / 30 amp breakers the does the 3 rd wire go to a ground on the panel? I see that the wiring from the neutral goes out of the box to the water pipe assuming that it’ was built that way many years ago, do I tie into the neutral bar with that ground wire for the inverter ? View attachment 130076

Yikes!!

 

[Mike 134]

I cannot figure why there are so many White wires (Neutral) connected to the circuit breakers.

I can tell you why there are white wires connected to the breakers.

the person doing it had ZERO knowledge of the correct means and methods of electrical work. Somehow it works as he hoped so he's tickled pink!!

 

[Bud Martin]

I also wonder what that terminal hanging on the wires is about.
I do not think the new electrician will want to deal with this mess unless he/she is allowed to completely redo the whole thing.

 

[Texican]

yes I wondered about that also
there are 2 black wires (actually white wires with some black tape ?} going to the opposite side and I cant tell where they come from.
the 2 white ones seem to be from the sub panel
never seen clips used like that, they look like lugs you add to a neutral or ground bar

 

[Ampster]

yes I wondered about that also

Yes, me too, If is is a ground it is the wrong color. Ground wires are required to be bare or green.

 

[sollap]

I think that's the Neutral he was asking about connecting. That lug would get attached to the Neutral bar. Maybe under the screw just to the left of it in the picture. Also not a good idea.

 

[Texican]

Retired Senior. sorry if many of us freaked out a bit after seeing your panels. this is a great forum and you can get real advise and help free here. when we look at the whole thing it is a bit hard to know where to start helping

lets start with a few questions

what type inverter do you have ? is it installed ? any pics ?

is this an off grid system vs grid tie ? any batteries ?

are you trying to power your whole house ?

any 240v loads ?

lastly. please dont turn on any breakers in the new panel at this time, its just not ready

the way you tried to set this up just doesnt work, but we do know how to do it right and if you can slow down a bit we can get you answers other than spend thousands calling an electrician.

many, many of us are also retired seniors and can relate