Bonding Exceptions?

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moore319

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Question: Are there any exceptions in the NEC, etc. that permit NOT bonding the telecom grounding electrode to the homes grounding electrode?

I work for a telephone/CATV provider. We have had several customer complaints about TV?s, phones, etc being struck by lightning. Our insurance company will only pay for the customer?s equipment if we were not properly grounded/bonded. We have one suit pending now where the power is on one side of the house and our service is on the opposite side of the house. We did not bond back in 1996 because there were too many obstacles in the back yard and we would have had to bore under the driveway to go around the front yard. We were under RUS ? REA standards at that time (which was supposed to comply fully with the NEC). We drove our own ground rod, heck we ALWAYS drive a ground rod even thought we don?t need to.

Our Chief of Plant Operations said they ?extracted some verbiage from the NEC with our lawyers and concluded that we do not need to bond if we must resort to extraordinary means to achieve the bond?. What they mean is we are exempt from bonding if we must go under a drive way, under the back yard fence and around the back of the home or if cement has been poured around the homes grounding electrode which would leave the bonding wire exposed for a long run. Our company does not use water pipes to bond.
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

If the building has a power service, the phone and cable systems must be bonded to the power service grounding system. There are no exceptions that I know of. Even under the '86 code the only time that you could use an independent grounding electrode is where the building did not have a power service.
Don

[ August 13, 2004, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: don_resqcapt19 ]
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

I am surprised all they have complained about is lightning. Noise would also be a issue i.e. CATV.

I am with Don on this one, there never has been an exception, and never will be. My bet is you are buying lots of phones, faxes, TV's ect. Consider yourself lucky no houses have burned down or life lost.

Driving a ground rod is pointless unless you run a bonding jumper all the way back to the service electrode. All electrodes have to be bonded together to form a common electrode.

[ August 13, 2004, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: dereckbc ]
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

Originally posted by moore319:
Our insurance company will only pay for the customer?s equipment if we were not properly grounded/bonded.

Our Chief of Plant Operations said they ?extracted some verbiage from the NEC with our lawyers and concluded that we do not need to bond if we must resort to extraordinary means to achieve the bond?.
Click to expand...
I doubt the insurance company pays a dime based on your Chief and the lawyer's extracted verbiage.

I too know of no exception and can see no verbiage that leads to an 'extraordinary means' clause.

The sad part now is that the company will possibly increase their rates to pay for their own mistakes, and many potentially unsafe conditions will probably never be corrected.
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

Perhaps your chief engineer ought to read 800.40, and 820.40. In particular 800.40(D) & 820.40(D) which states:
"A bonding jumper not smaller than 6 AWG or equivalent shall be connected between communication grounding electrode and power grounding electrode at the building structure served where separate electrodes are used".

There is no exception.
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

Moore319

It would be better to learn why it is required to bond all incoming wires at one point than to figure away to not do it. One of the biggest reasons is that the lightning will try to follow the cable into the house through the equipment to get to the neutral and or the equipment grounding conductor for a path back to the service. The other reason is if there is no bond between the electrodes and lightning strikes the tel-co wire you now have a very high voltage and current differential between these two points and the common item that is electrically connected between these two points is the very equipment that you installed the electrode to protect. And the fact that grounding wire over 25' will have very little effect on this this is why the NEC requires you to install a ground rod and then requires you to run a #6 or larger back to the main service grounding electrode.

For some very good reading to catch up on lightning and how to protect against it as much as we can, go to this site:


National Lightning Safety Institute (NLSI) home page
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

Thanks everyone. I was 99.9% positive there was no exception to bonding but I just needed to hear it from someone else.
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

Jim, you kind of stold my comment but I couldn't have said it that good.
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

Jim
You missed the reference in Art 100, under

'Lazy', which states: An installation that is too hard, inconvenient or cost too much can be installed in whatever fashion makes the customer happy - be prepared for that kind of customer to not pay you anyway. :D
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

...along with the exception to every code requirement which is: You don't have to follow the code if what you did is what you thought the code said or what someone told you it said.
 
Re: Bonding Exceptions?

this is the one I like
"the code is only for T&M jobs...it doesn't apply to contract jobs"
 
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