Equipment Ground For A junction Box with Splices

[Rccranford1]

There are 4 sets of 600 MCM and I Equipment Ground in 4-4" Conduits that leave a 1200 amp Switch to feed a switchboard located about 700 ft away. The contractor spliced these four sets of Conductors at one Junction Box. As the local authority ( certified Maryland state Electrical Inspector ) we informed them that the box with the spliced conductors needs to have the EGC attached to the box per NEC250.148, which they failed to do. Our team (3 Inspectors and 1 Master) submitted a NCR to force them to take this action. They in turn submitted an RFI arguing the grounding is not required by NFPA 70. Please Publish your thoughts.

 

[electrofelon]

250.148(C) seems pretty clear, a connection to the box is required. There is no mention of an exception for if the box is already bonded by an approved raceway.

 

[infinity]

I agree with electro, even if the raceway is suitable as an EGC according to 250.118 you would still need the jumper to the box. No splices than no jumper required.

 

[petersonra]

They are going to a lot of trouble to avoid doing something that would seem to be fairly inexpensive. I wonder why.

All one would need to do is expose a small amount of insulation on one of the ground wires and ground clamp it to the box.

 

[ActionDave]

Add this to the list of code requirements that make no sense

 

[infinity]

Add this to the list of code requirements that make no sense

Ditto that.

 

[kwired]

There are 4 sets of 600 MCM and I Equipment Ground in 4-4" Conduits that leave a 1200 amp Switch to feed a switchboard located about 700 ft away. The contractor spliced these four sets of Conductors at one Junction Box. As the local authority ( certified Maryland state Electrical Inspector ) we informed them that the box with the spliced conductors needs to have the EGC attached to the box per NEC250.148, which they failed to do. Our team (3 Inspectors and 1 Master) submitted a NCR to force them to take this action. They in turn submitted an RFI arguing the grounding is not required by NFPA 70. Please Publish your thoughts.

If they feel you are wrong on what 250.148 requires then they need to submit to you information on why they think you are wrong, IMO.

You (more so your employer with you being a representative) has authority to reject this and if they don't wish to correct it likely has other things you can do such as revoke their license or at least place it in a status that does jeopardize the ability to retain it or even order the power supplier to disconnect the service in some situations, which if they are contractors possibly gets them on bad side of things with the owner.

Of course you need to be fair and give them the chance to present why they think you are wrong with interpreting code, but this one doesn't seem to have much room for gray interpretation areas so they should need something pretty obvious that supports their position on it.