nymtns
New User
- Occupation
- Engineer
I ran into an odd situation at a property a friend inherited. There are 3 structures on the lot, each about 100' apart, and a swimming pool.
The utility service comes in at one corner of the lot and originally ran underground 100' from the last pole to the main house, which had a 200A disconnect with a neutral bonding jumper installed.
From the main panel in that house, there was a feeder to a shed - with no EGC - the outbuilding had two rods and, again (no green wire in the feeder) the bonding jumper installed in its subpanel, which I understand was good per code at that time. This bonding jumper has been removed by others (see below), which I question, since there is no EGC in the feeder cable.
From there to the swimming pool runs another feeder without ground, and at the pool, there's a 6 space panel for the pool pump and heater, again with a rod, a bonding jumper to neutral (this one still connected), and what appears to be proper bonding of the pool equipment, rebar in the pool deck, and fence.
Some time in the 1990s, two changes were made.
1) A detached garage was constructed on the corner of the lot where the service enters, and the SE moved there. Two new rods were driven and neutral and ground bonded in the new service entrance panel. The original buried service entrance cable (again: no ground wire!) was reused to feed the main house. The bonding jumper was removed from the original service disconnect at the main house.
2) Rodents nested in the subpanel in the outbuilding between the main house and pool, which started a small fire. The subpanel was replaced and the jumper between neutral and ground was not installed in the new subpanel.
So the situation now looks like:
SE panel at garage (with rods and jumper)-feeder without EGC->Main House (with rod and water pipe ground)->feeder without EGC->shed (with rods, no jumper)->feeder without EGC->pool (rod plus CEE, jumper).
Not on the menu: digging up all the feeders. The grounding rods are actually in decent shape except at the shed, where I'll replace them - noticing the shed subpanel was "too new" and not jumpered as I would have expected for this era of construction was what made me look at all the rest actually. What's the right, code-compliant path forward?
The utility service comes in at one corner of the lot and originally ran underground 100' from the last pole to the main house, which had a 200A disconnect with a neutral bonding jumper installed.
From the main panel in that house, there was a feeder to a shed - with no EGC - the outbuilding had two rods and, again (no green wire in the feeder) the bonding jumper installed in its subpanel, which I understand was good per code at that time. This bonding jumper has been removed by others (see below), which I question, since there is no EGC in the feeder cable.
From there to the swimming pool runs another feeder without ground, and at the pool, there's a 6 space panel for the pool pump and heater, again with a rod, a bonding jumper to neutral (this one still connected), and what appears to be proper bonding of the pool equipment, rebar in the pool deck, and fence.
Some time in the 1990s, two changes were made.
1) A detached garage was constructed on the corner of the lot where the service enters, and the SE moved there. Two new rods were driven and neutral and ground bonded in the new service entrance panel. The original buried service entrance cable (again: no ground wire!) was reused to feed the main house. The bonding jumper was removed from the original service disconnect at the main house.
2) Rodents nested in the subpanel in the outbuilding between the main house and pool, which started a small fire. The subpanel was replaced and the jumper between neutral and ground was not installed in the new subpanel.
So the situation now looks like:
SE panel at garage (with rods and jumper)-feeder without EGC->Main House (with rod and water pipe ground)->feeder without EGC->shed (with rods, no jumper)->feeder without EGC->pool (rod plus CEE, jumper).
Not on the menu: digging up all the feeders. The grounding rods are actually in decent shape except at the shed, where I'll replace them - noticing the shed subpanel was "too new" and not jumpered as I would have expected for this era of construction was what made me look at all the rest actually. What's the right, code-compliant path forward?
