Hello all,

LOML and I just bought a new house with a detached one car garage workshop.
I was taking stock of the electrical set up and wanted to see if this was up to snuff from a safety standpoint. The house passed inspection, but I am wanting to use this shop as my mancave. Thus the double check.

Starting from the house's service panel, (200amp) I see a single pole 50 amp breaker with #6awg hot leg. The neutral and ground are both #6awg and both lived down to the ground buss. This circuit travels a little less than 15 feet to the garage where it is terminated into a sub panel. Neutral to neutral lug, hot leg to hot lug, ground to grounding buss. In the sub panel are three, single pole 20 amp breakers. One is dedicated to two plugs on one wall (10 feet from sub panel) wired with, what looks to be 10/2 with ground Romex.
Another circuit is also wired with 10/2 with ground Romex, and has six 20amp receptacles wired, I think, in series. The last breaker, has a single plug for a couple pond pump out back. It looks like it is just a single plug, about a foot from the sub panel, also wired with 10/2 with ground Romex.

Is there any reason to be concerned with this set up the way it is? Or should I be looking to re-do it entirely?

Thanks for any help.

 

Wouldn't work. They are paralleled in a daisy chain. 10-2 isn't wrong but it only needed to be 12-2. Are the receptacles GFCI protected? If not GFCI protection must be added. Is the feed individual conductors in conduit? Is there a ground rod at the garage?

 

Yes GFCI, and yes, there is a grounding rod at the out building, and yes, all three conductors are in conduit. This looks to be a fairly new-ish installation.

 

If at the sub panel the ground bar is bonded and the neutral bar isolated with branch circuit grounds and neutrals on their respective bars and the feed is UF or THWN in conduit you are good to go.

 

Ground bar bonded at main service panel? Or ground bar bonded at sub panel?

 

OOps my bad. Ground bar bonded at the subpanel. Will edit my post.

 

Ok, thanks for the edit. How will I know if the sub panels ground buss is bonded?

 

Most grounding bus bars screw into the metal enclosure. This bonds them.

Every other slot is your panel is not usable since you have a 120 volt feed.

 

Ok, that's great! Looks like I may be good to go.

Thanks!

 

Be sure there isn't a bonding screw or strap in the subpanel bonding the neutral bus to the panel box. If there is, remove it. One more #6 conductor would have provided a 120/240 volt subpanel and capability of twice as many circuits. I don't understand why anyone would cut that minimal cost. The ground wire from the house panel could have been a #10 so all that was saved was the cost of a single #10 conductor.

 

I haven't the foggiest. I'm a bit perplexed myself. It's also one of the reasons I wanted to double check that this configuration was safe.