220 wiring a garage panel

[donnio]

do I need a neutral wire from house panel to garage panel or is a ground post enough. i want to wire from a 220 V heater with only 2 wires. Thank you
donnio

[suemarkp]

Generally, I believe you can make a 240V only subpanel if you want to. However, I don't believe you should do this in a residential setting (people expect neutrals). If you do this, I'd remove the neutral bar so there's no question that neutral is not there.

However, if this is a detached garage, I don't believe you'll be able to comply with the codes with a 240V only panel. A building requires a light above its entrance, and most lights are not permitted to be served by 240V. A separate building must be grounded, but at long as you have an equipment grounding ocnductor run with the 240V feeder, you can ground that to a rod at the garage. But this ground is not to be used as a neutral if coming from a bare or green wire in the heater circuit.

So I'd look for a 3 insulated wire circuit with 4th bare or green ground to provide the circuit to your garage. Don't think you can comply with code otherwise.