I am a resident in an over 55 community. I am also a former/retired Wire Inspector. Which means I have a habit of looking at wiring that may have safety violations. Well I found several bonding maintenance issues at our community pool. The bond wire coming from the pool area to the pool pump and equipment area is deteriorated to less than 1/3 of its normal #8ga. size and is not connected to the filter motor or anything else. I got an estimate on 11/9/2011 from the pool company that maintains our pool. The Treasurer has fought me tooth and nail on the subject of safety vs. dollars and cents. He has the pool maintenance company saying that bonding is not that important. Guess who pays them and approves their contract. I have tried to convince the board on the seriousness of the lack of bonding to no avail. How can I steer them in the right direction for safety's sake?
I don't want to alert the wire inspector because if he is like me he will shut the pool down!
don't take this as I'm not being of safety minded, as I am, but most equal potential bonding systems serve no purpose when there is no stray voltage in the area of a pool, they are there just encase a voltage does develop, stray voltage in most cases comes from the neutral drop of the affected service and or the main grounding neutral on the utility side of the transformer, while it should be repaired and if it is just a short section of the bonding conductor there is no rule that it can not be spliced with the proper method to just replace the bad section, but if this damage is the part running in the earth then it seems there might be other problems that may be causing it, the first thing I would do is to check how much voltage there is between this bonding wire and earth, using a DVM from the wire to just sticking the other probe into earth, if your seeing more then 5-10 volts then I would say you might have a problem with the service or primary neutral connection, but if less, then it is normal neutral voltage drop, generally copper can sit out side or be buried in earth forever, but as soon as you provide a voltage potential difference between the earth and the copper, it will start dissolving, also high acid or alkaline moisture will also cause it to dissolve but testing is the only way to get to the real reason.
I'm like you as about every place I go to I'm looking, but I tend to let those who are in charge to make the choice even if I'm part of the supply of money to them. last month I was at a hotel on Datona Beach, and saw a few things I pointed out to management, but left it at that, because I know it starts to fall on deaf ears if you complain all the time.
So in Essenes, if you were to measure a high voltage to earth then I would say there is more to worry about, but I would not place this in one of the more dangerous items as there are thousands of pools that have no EPGS, and have been that way for years, does it provide some safety? yes I do believe it does, but to me it is a band-aid that covers for a much more serious problem that is what's causing the stray voltage to start with.
Edited to add: I don't meen the part of the system that connects all the metal parts together, but the EPG
grid around the pool is what I had on my mind, if there are electric equipment in close proximity of the pool then they need to be maintained at the same potential.
