Concrete encase service ground

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NEC calls for the concrete encased portion of new construction ground to be 20ft of continuous electrically conductive coated steel reinforcing bars or rods. We have in the past cadwelded our copper ground wire to a short piece of rebar and tied it into the rebar in the footing to achieve this 20ft of continuously connected steel. This also placed a short section of the copper ground wire inside the concrete encasement. Is it required per NEC code that the copper ground wire actually be bonded to the steel inside the concrete? I have had one local inspector tell me that we can simply have the footing contractor turn up a piece of rebar that is tied to this 20ft continuous length at the service panel or disconnect and we can then bond our ground wire to this exposed turned up rebar. I cannot find anything in the code that says the copper ground wire has to be bonded inside the concrete. What is your opinion or translation of this?
 

Dennis Alwon

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Chapel Hill, NC
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Retired Electrical Contractor
If the rebar is in the footing then why would you add more rebar? Just connect the #4 bare copper to the rebar by using an acorn clamp. The steel in the footing is tied together with tie wire and that is all that is needed. The copper can be installed in the footing or you can have a piece of rebar stubbed out and you can tie to that.
 

infinity

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New Jersey
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As Dennis stated you can stub up a piece of rebar and connect to it after the pour. This eliminates the problem of thieves cutting off the pieces of copper sticking out of the concrete. A suggestion, try to use the correct terminology, the 20' of rebar is a concrete encased electrode (CEE). The copper conductor connected to it is typically a grounding electrode conductor (GEC). One other note, the use of electrically conductive coated steel reinforcing bars is for when the rebar is not bare or zinc galvanized coated.
 

JDB3

Senior Member
In one town where I have done work, the inspector wants a re-bar sticking up, out of the concrete, so that he can see the grounding when he inspects (they have the foundation engineer inspect the re-bar for the slab).
 
Thank you for your responses and confirmation that it does not matter as far as code whether the GEC was imbedded in the concrete footing or not. It is a timing issue as we are not on site yet, but this CEE needs to be in place.
 
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