Cold water ground

[wwhitney]

Read (C) and (C)(1) carefully.

Indeed, and I stand by my reading. The key part of 250.68(C)(1) is "used as a conductor to interconnect electrodes". If you're not using the water pipe in that fashion, there is no 5 foot rule. You can connect your GEC or bonding jumper to the water pipe electrode anywhere that is electrically continuous with the underground section as per 250.52(A)(1).

Look as 250.68(C)(2), it is about using the structural frame of a building to interconnect electrodes. All of 250.68 is about interconnecting electrodes, not how to connect to a single electrode.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[kwired]

Indeed, and I stand by my reading. The key part of 250.68(C)(1) is "used as a conductor to interconnect electrodes". If you're not using the water pipe in that fashion, there is no 5 foot rule. You can connect your GEC or bonding jumper to the water pipe electrode anywhere that is electrically continuous with the underground section as per 250.52(A)(1).

Look as 250.68(C)(2), it is about using the structural frame of a building to interconnect electrodes. All of 250.68 is about interconnecting electrodes, not how to connect to a single electrode.

Cheers, Wayne

That means the first five feet inside the building is a bonding jumper to the electrode doesn't it?

Building steel isn't exactly an electrode either, just the parts that are in the earth, but we can use any of the interior steel parts as a bonding jumper if they are electrically continuous with the electrode.

 

[wwhitney]

Up through 2008, this issue was very clear, as the 5' rule was part of 250.52(A)(1) and the language was unambiguous "shall not" language. When the rule was moved to 250.68(C)(1), the language was changed to the current "shall be permitted to be used as a conductor to interconnect electrodes" phrasing. But as I read 250.52(A)(1) now, if 250.68(C)(1) were absent, there would be no question that you could connect to the water pipe electrode, say, 10' after it has entered the building. The current permissive language in 250.68(C)(1) in no way prohibits that, so the (perhaps inadvertent) effect has been to get rid of the 5' rule, other than for interconnecting electrodes.

Cheers, Wayne