groud conductor in conduit

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la2151

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HI. want to thank every one for being so help full. I learn allot in reading in here.
I am just curious how many others will pull a grnd conductor in a emt conduit run? It is a norm 20amp 125 volt plug circuit.
 
More often than not we do not pull in an insulated EGC unless the spec calls for it, which means that someone in paying for it.
 
If you do that ,you have to bond it to each enclosure, don't you?
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Only if you splice or terminate the circuit conductors in the enclosure. If they are pulled straight through, you are not required to bond the EGC to the enclosure.
Don
 
ptonsparky said:
Kind of defeats the purpose of pulling one.
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That depends on whether you pull it to bond the conduit and boxes, or to serve the connected equipment.
 
I realized you didn't have to bond it to the box unless you spliced or terminated, so you wouldn't in an LB or another box in which you pulled straight through. I guess I just didn't express it properly.

One reason it always seemed a pain to me was because the grounding screw often protrudes through the back of the box, maybe into a concrete wall, or in an area where people might catch their hands on it or something..

Also, the extra stripping splicing etc. that is involved, when it really isn't required to be there.

I'd prefer to rely on the conduit , but I guess no one could be faulted for wanting to ensure the grounding path.:smile:
 
la2151 said:
HI. want to thank every one for being so help full. I learn allot in reading in here.
I am just curious how many others will pull a grnd conductor in a emt conduit run? It is a norm 20amp 125 volt plug circuit.
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You're welcome.

It depends on the installation.

If it is a short run of 30-40', in an indoor clean environment you probably fine.

If the installation is commercial and you are running 100-200' feet of conduit in a warehouse that may have equipment that subjects the instalaltion to vibration, and it is not a conditioned environment where you can expect some corrosion over the years you are going to see trouble down on the line.

The EMT in this case is your grounding path and every conduit connection is a point of changeable resistance. The screw set or compression set conduit coupling can and will build up resistance that will reduce the effectiveness of the ground fault protection of the circuit and consequently can result in a fire hazard in addition to electrocution hazard to personell.
 
I have also pulled egc along with the other wires, I have seen more bad conduit runs than I have seen good ones. working in schools and business's around here. I would also say that the quality of work around here is probably not up to par with what you would see in other parts of the country, so this may also be a reason that some people do and some don't. I have seem a lot of loose locknut's and screws/compression fittings. In a large building I would guess the odds of having some loose connections among the hundreds of them, that one or two would be poor.
 
stjohnbarleycorn said:
I have seen more bad conduit runs than I have seen good ones. working in schools and business's around here.
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The thing is those same 'electricians' that install these bad conduit runs are the same ones making splices.

My point is if they don't care about how they install conduit they are not suddenly going to become concerned with great splicing and terminations.

Either EGC conductor can be more then adequate if installed correctly.
 
iwire said:
As a service guy I have repaired many more bad splices then pulled apart pipes.
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Yeah, in fact, the splices on the EGC seem to be the ones that get butchered the most, by the sheer fact of laziness or ignorance.

Because we all know what happens when many of the so-called electricians that you mentioned splice a can or a j-box with multiple conduit runs and/or cables in it. "Yeah, I can get 10 #12's under a red wirenut, right?" The solution would be to use a large blue wing nut or a ground bar kit, but more often that not I see the red wire nut trick making a very poor connection on the EGC's. :rolleyes:
 
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