been reading some good stuff here and got me thinking.

I am working on this house where I gutted everything including the wiring. I left the underground 10/2 with ground that connected the house to a detached garage. The old wire is stubbed into the house crawlspace and into the garage. Alongside that underground wire was a single wire someone had used for a switchleg.

I thought that some day I might want 220 for something in the garage. From the new panel in the house I ran 10/3 with ground to a metal junction box in the crawl.

Connections:
in crawl...new black-old black
new red-old white
new white-old bare copper
new bare copper-old single wire

I colored the old underground white wire on both ends to designate that it was now a hot wire.

In the garage I made the same connections in a new box and took off with new wire.

Anyone see any problems using the bare copper wire as a nuetral for the run between the house a garage?

 

Its strictly against code, neutral can only be the white, bare is for codes, you need to get a new wire to the garage.

 

There are many problems here. These are probably just a start.
1. You can't use bare wire as current carrying.
2. The single wire you ran is meant to be in conduit.
3. You have more than one wire/cable running to a detached building.