grounding of service

[George Stolz]

Bob, thanks for the correction. The (unsuccessful) all-day car shopping extraganza left me thinking unclearly.

Thinking on it fresh this morning, I have installed the #4 bonding conductor, but removed the jumper from neutral to the can in the meterbase. That too bonded it once, and did not result in a parallel path.

I don't remember why I did it, but in retrospect it was probably a waste of time. The factory-supplied jumper is designed for the task.

 

[iwire]

I don't remember why I did it, but in retrospect it was probably a waste of time. The factory-supplied jumper is designed for the task.

The meter bases we use here do not come with that option, the neutral terminals are directly mounted to the enclosure, I could not 'un'-bond it if I had to.

Sorry the car hunt did not work out.

 

[e2me2]

Yeah, and if we could land the rod GEC at the meter, and the water-pipe ground at the panel, we could save copper.

That is what we do here in Sioux falls SD we land the rod in meter and water pipe or concrete electrode in panel . This was not always the case though as our AHJ had the same argument that once sealed it was not accessable. We argued that it cant be sealed till you inspect it, and call power company for hook up so what is the problem . The following year the AHJ had the local code changed to allow this and has been ever since

 

[hornetd]

One of the areas I worked in had an Rural Electrification Administration (REA) power cooperative as the power utility. Their rules were quite specific. The GEC had to connect at the overhead service drop drip loop splice. If you had other electrodes they had to daisy chain from the ground rod directly under the GEC connection point. That was thier way of keeping stray voltage from surges and lightning out of the home. I used to use number four flat braided copper as my GEC. The county inspector hated it but when I showed him the UL listing mark on the roll he let it go through. The old REA type engineer for the power coop loved the braided copper GEC. I couldn't please em all so I just got as close as I new how.

 

[more electric]

We may be talking bonding of two different things, the GEC and neutral.
The GEC can be bonded between the service point and service disconnect. Most often its done in the service disconnect, sometimes in the meter socket.
The neutral is always bonded in the service and the meter socket. Remember a meter is not required by the NEC. In washington state we can't bond the GEC in the meter socket as after its sealed it is no longer accessible. You have to disconnect the GEC when thawing frozen pipes

And personally I feel the best installation has the GEC bonded in the meter socket, why have lightning come into the house and back out on the GEC.
However, I have never seen a meter socket that would allow bonding the GEC in it.

In many areas the meter is locked and the inspector/electrician can not verify if the wire from the rod is secured.