Tim K
Member
- Location
- Southeastern PA
I'm stuck in a debate with my electrician, perhaps you guys can settle it...
The situation:
The residential property we are renovating was built in 1992. The panel appears to have two "grounds". One wire from the ground/neutral bar is currently "grounded" to a cold water pipe which is about 10ft from the panel and about 30ft from where the service enters the building. In other words, well after the meter and not within 5ft of the outside. The second "ground" wire runs from the ground/neutral bar out through the wall, and attaches to a buried rod at the service entrance. (phone, cable, etc are also tied to this rod)
There is a jumper from the service side over the meter.
There is a bond between the gas piping and cold water line at the water heater.
There is not a bond anywhere I see between hot and cold water lines - I'm having him add one.
He says it is fine to leave it as is and that it is not necessary to spend the time and money to run 40ft of grounding wire from the panel to the service side of the meter because the panel is already grounded at the rod.
I say that current code requires the water line to be the ground, and that the grounding rod outside serves as a supplementary ground. I have no reason to believe the water supply line is anything other than metal all the way to the street, but I have no way of confirming it.
What say you?
As a follow-up, we are also putting in a manual transfer switch for a portable generator. The generator will need to be grounded to the building's ground....so that leaves the question of which is the "actual ground" and thus where to ground the generator - the water supply or the rod?
-Tim
The situation:
The residential property we are renovating was built in 1992. The panel appears to have two "grounds". One wire from the ground/neutral bar is currently "grounded" to a cold water pipe which is about 10ft from the panel and about 30ft from where the service enters the building. In other words, well after the meter and not within 5ft of the outside. The second "ground" wire runs from the ground/neutral bar out through the wall, and attaches to a buried rod at the service entrance. (phone, cable, etc are also tied to this rod)
There is a jumper from the service side over the meter.
There is a bond between the gas piping and cold water line at the water heater.
There is not a bond anywhere I see between hot and cold water lines - I'm having him add one.
He says it is fine to leave it as is and that it is not necessary to spend the time and money to run 40ft of grounding wire from the panel to the service side of the meter because the panel is already grounded at the rod.
I say that current code requires the water line to be the ground, and that the grounding rod outside serves as a supplementary ground. I have no reason to believe the water supply line is anything other than metal all the way to the street, but I have no way of confirming it.
What say you?
As a follow-up, we are also putting in a manual transfer switch for a portable generator. The generator will need to be grounded to the building's ground....so that leaves the question of which is the "actual ground" and thus where to ground the generator - the water supply or the rod?
-Tim