Any electricians here? I need help! Lost power to the garage!

[6t8dart]

I would appreciate any help I can get.

I had guys come in and do sod in my backyard. Friday they ripped out all the shrubs, and they plan to come in a till up the dirt and lay down sod on Monday. Today I went to the garage, no power!

Here is the senario. The garage is a small two car, detached. Below the meter on the house is a tap that goes down to a breaker box with two 50 amp breakers. They were not tripped. In the garage I have a 30 a 120v breaker and a double 15 a 120v breaker. Neither were tripped. I looked outside and found where the conduit comes out of the ground, which is next to where the shrubs they pulled out were, digging around the dirt (yes, I turned off the main breaker), I found a thick copper wire that came out about a foot and was broken. Is this my issue? Do I just attach it to a ground rod and it will be fixed? I suspect it ran through the ground back to the house, but I can't find the other end.

[stevo7896]

If they were licensed/bonded you may have some recourse. But it may cost more to sue than the repair would run. Describe the conduit ,did it have more than one wire running inside ? Look at the conduit as it enter the boxes at each location and conform which wires are run between the house/garage boxes .That will give you an idea what is running underground,and what needs to be replaced.

[6t8dart]

I'll see if I can take some pics

[JeffS]

Losing just the protective earth ground (if that is in fact what you found) would not cause you to lose power. You better have a certified guy come out and repair everything because outside circuits and garage circuits should be on proper ground-fault (GFI) circuits that are working properly. Its not worth having you or a family member get a nasty jolt... or worse while vacuuming out the car, or standing in a puddle in the driveway. Improperly working (or improperly wired) ground fault circuits can still provide full power at the outlet without providing any protection against electrocution.

[skullandbones]

6t8dart,

Is it possible you have a tripped GFI receptacle? That would be the very first thing to check. It is possible that you just overloaded the receptacle with a power tool. My table saw causes the thing to trip now and then (peak load if binding motor). The disconnected grounding rod/wire will not disconnect power. If that isn't it then you have damage underground from the digging (possible root wrapped around conduit damaged when pulled hard). I would put a hold on their work until you can see the extent of damage and go from there.

Good luck,

WEK.

[6t8dart]

OK, i did some more digging around (literally) and found that i have two large thick 8 ga wires going into the garage, no third wire. The house and garage are 50's vintage and i believe this is common in very old technology and when it was done 40-60 years ago, as the only thing I found that the landscapers damaged was the bare/ground wire. Most of my house is ungrounded inside, but I have added grounds as projects are done in the house. Eventually we will need to replace both breaker boxes in the house and upgrade, but I cant afford to do anything other than fix what is broken in the garage now.
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[frankeeski]

What you're showing in the picture was NEVER legal! It appears from what you've described that they ran two hot wires 110 volt each to the garage and are using a ground rod and a bare copper wire to create a false neutral connection. This is wrong, wrong, wrong! I suspect originally it was a 110 volt circuit run out there, one hot, a neutral and then a local ground rod for an equipment ground. Still, this was not done by a licensed electrician. It's time for you to start over. Direct burial wire is OK as far as the N.E.C. is concerned but you may want to run conduit just to protect it for the future. Pull new conductors from the service panel to the sub panel and reconnect. Do not attempt to use what's there now, someone is going to get hurt.

[6t8dart]

I was afraid of that, I'll prob have an electrician install a 240 outlet in the garage while I'm at it.

[BobCarter]

6t8dart is correct!
Also, please be advised that there should only be one ground rod (properly installed) for the service to your home. Multiple ground rods result in posible potentials that are undesirable. A licensed electrician will know this.