Fixture Grounding

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franklinmanklin

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Michigan
Parking ramp. PVC pipe. Some metallic boxes and some PVC boxes. No equipment ground in the existing conduit. The LED manufacturer claims that the warranty is voided if the fixture is not grounded.

My question is three-part.
1. If the box is metallic, is it and the fixture need to be grounded?
2. If the box is PVC, what is the point in grounding it?
3. I do not have the warranty requirements, but do you think that we need to pull in an equipment ground and bond both the metallic boxes and fixtures? This would be very extensive and expensive.
 
Your first concern should be that the PVC conduit can not be used as an EGC. So install EGC in it along with the circuit conductors.

As far as expensive, it is much less expensive to install the EGC than to have injury or death because you knew the lack of EGC and did not do anything about it.
 
edward said:
Your first concern should be that the PVC conduit can not be used as an EGC. So install EGC in it along with the circuit conductors.

As far as expensive, it is much less expensive to install the EGC than to have injury or death because you knew the lack of EGC and did not do anything about it.
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Is it grandfathered in though?
 
franklinmanklin said:
Is it grandfathered in though?
Click to expand...

I am 99% sure there is No, grandfathering with the EGC unless if the install is really old.

Then you have a gray area, "you worked on the system why did you not bring it up to code". If an accident happens The jury or the judge will not care much about the "grandfathering"
 
Usually all these clauses and fpn's are just for the manufacturer to get out of backing up their warrenties
 
Cletis said:
Usually all these clauses and fpn's are just for the manufacturer to get out of backing up their warrenties
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If their LED driver contains surge suppressors they would better function if there were an EGC to bleed transient voltages to - sounds like a good reason to void a warranty to me.
 
The fixtures and metallic boxes need to be grounded. If one of them were to become energized through a fault condition, an electrocution hazard would exist. Your current installation does not provide a fault-clearing path. If installing an EGC is not feasible, I would install class A GFCI protection for the circuit(s) involved. That would greatly reduce the safety hazard and bring you closer to code compliance (see 410.44 exception 3).
 
If I were doing this install, when I realized there were no egc I would have to inform the customer it will be a change order for us to install egc first. It seems this would be a simple yes or no. If its a no then I cant install them. I know extensive and expensive can lead to losing a customer but if you didnt say they could be installed by disconnect and replace then dont sweat it.
 
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