Grounding/Bonding condominium's MDP

[BayElectric]

Engineering drwing calls for:
Building grounding electrode with #3
Cold water pipe #3/0 (pex from the street to building convert to metal riser)
Building steel #3 (building does have any steel.)
Footer steel #3 (only 20' rebar, all other steel is coated.)
And ground rod #3.
Service to building is 1200A with two sets of 600Kcmil

NEC refers to 1/0 for 600Kcmil 250.66 for GEC, except that rod or concere encased electrode (footer steel) not be required to be larger than #6 for rod & #4 for Ufer.
What should be the code requirements for this senario?
Thanks,

 

[Joe.B]

Classic. This is a case of the design professional (engineer/architect/whatever) not knowing and/or understanding what they are designing. They literally just copy/paste this crap over and over from job to job. Then if the plan reviewer kicks it back they say "it's just boilerplate, nobody reads it anyways." Total nonsense.

I'm assuming that you're looking at an approved, job-copy set of plans? If that's on there then it means either the reviewer doesn't care, or they are just as clueless as the designer.

There are two paths that I can recommend and it really depends on your local AHJ, specifically the inspector. If the inspector is knowledgeable and realistic then path 1 would be just do it correctly and move on. Path 2 is a PITA but is probably the correct way, call whoever designed that crap and tell them you're going to do it correctly and you just wanted to let them know. This could be a pain because technically they should then follow up with corrections and submit revisions etc...

 

[roger]

Service to building is 1200A with two sets of 600Kcmil

NEC refers to 1/0 for 600Kcmil 250.66 for GEC, except that rod or concere encased electrode (footer steel) not be required to be larger than #6 for rod & #4 for Ufer.
What should be the code requirements for this senario?
Thanks,

You have parallel 600's for a total of 1200 KCMIL

 

[infinity]

You have parallel 600's for a total of 1200 KCMIL

Which is only 840 amps.

 

[electrofelon]

Engineering drwing calls for:
Building grounding electrode with #3
Cold water pipe #3/0 (pex from the street to building convert to metal riser)
Building steel #3 (building does have any steel.)
Footer steel #3 (only 20' rebar, all other steel is coated.)
And ground rod #3.
Service to building is 1200A with two sets of 600Kcmil

NEC refers to 1/0 for 600Kcmil 250.66 for GEC, except that rod or concere encased electrode (footer steel) not be required to be larger than #6 for rod & #4 for Ufer.
What should be the code requirements for this senario?
Thanks,

I am not able to follow some things in your description. What is "building grounding electrode", and is there building steel or not?

As others have said something seems wrong with your service size/wire size.

If you have other qualifying electrodes, you do not need to add a ground rod.

The waste drives me crazy. I like people to get called out on this BS so I would recommend asking the owner to ask the engineer why he is wasting his money.

 

[infinity]

The design is all over the place. For the electrodes you should have these size GEC's based on the SEC's.
Building steel: #3/0
CEE:#4
Ground Rod:#6
Bonding jumper for cold water piping system: 12½ percent of the area of the largest ungrounded supply conductor or equivalent area for parallel
supply conductors.

 

[BayElectric]

The design is all over the place. For the electrodes you should have these size GEC's based on the SEC's.
Building steel: #3/0
CEE:#4
Ground Rod:#6
Bonding jumper for cold water piping system: 12½ percent of the area of the largest ungrounded supply conductor or equivalent area for parallel
supply conductors.

Can you refer me to your 12.5% requirement for cold water pipe? I rememer seeing a 10% for bonding size a while back, but this was not part of the NEC.

 

[BayElectric]

You have parallel 600's for a total of 1200 KCMIL

Sorry for the confusion. Secondaries were pulled by the power company. I suppose the only indication to go by is the size of the service.

I am not able to follow some things in your description. What is "building grounding electrode", and is there building steel or not?

As others have said something seems wrong with your service size/wire size.

If you have other qualifying electrodes, you do not need to add a ground rod.

The waste drives me crazy. I like people to get called out on this BS so I would recommend asking the owner to ask the engineer why he is wasting his money.

No building steel, Building grounding electrode......I'm assuming ground rod, as it shows right beside the rod on the drawing.

 

[infinity]

Can you refer me to your 12.5% requirement for cold water pipe? I rememer seeing a 10% for bonding size a while back, but this was not part of the NEC.

Table 250.102(C)(1) Note 1.