Pole light grounding

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Jon, since the NESC doesn't have an EGC at all, then the only acceptable way for the utilities to bond poles (aside from casting their book aside and picking up the NEC) is through the neutral.

The problem I see with that is, poles lend themselves to multiwire branch circuits (long runs, many heads), and neutrals made up by utility workers lend themselves to opening. (wink)

That would result in a shock hazard without a second fault. A MWBC would contribute to ballast damage also.

On a regular circuit, there would still be a shock hazard under an open neutral.


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In the picture above, I've drawn an open neutral between these poles, "1-4", on a regular L-N circuit. The poles are all bonded to the neutral. Poles 3 and 4 have 120V on their surface, due to having no path for the neutral current. Some will flow into the ground, but due to the high resistance, it's not effective. In one case, the fault clearing path was removed due to people experiencing shocks from the poles. We never heard back on that, but I'm fairly confident that the cause of the shocks was an open neutral.

Many pole lights are subjected to harsh conditions due to the measures we take to keep roads open in winter. Conductors deteriorate.


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By contrast, NEC poles will not shock on an open neutral between poles, as the EGC is not touching the neutral.

Anyway, that's all my opinion on it. If it were a perfect world, then the neutral-bonding would be as good. But it's not a perfect world, and I don't think it is.

I'm throwing this other picture on this thread just so all my eggs are in one basket.

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I'm still swinging away, but I'm not gaining any ground. Some people want this to go away, but I am afraid I can't do that. I used the ammo that I had and the matter is still unresolved. It's tradgic.
 
What about doing it the right way, sending someone a bill, and then taking them to small claims court for the cost?

Was the customer not concerned about the problem?
 
Well I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease. After weeks of trying to justify what he did, the engineer finally admitted that he was wrong and I saw a crew out there trenchining a new ground wire in with the conductors. They also were cutting through a bunch of recently installed sprinkler lines, but I believe that those lines are not my department. I want to thank everyone who submitted information on this matter for without it, I was in for a long uphill fight. The information was accurate and could not be disputed. But these guys are really going to hate me when I tell them that the Big Blue wire nuts are not rated for copper to aluminum connections. I read the box and it says " For copper conductors ONLY". Hey it's not my fault that they don't read the code book, but it is my job to make sure that they do things according to the code and not make it up as they go along. Once again thank you one and all. It is a relief to have a place to where you can discuss things like this in a open forum without some dimwit shouting at you trying to make his/her point.
 
That is awesome - many people would have just said "To heck with it, it's on the engineer" and moved on. You did very well. :)

memyselfandI said:
But these guys are really going to hate me when I tell them that the Big Blue wire nuts are not rated for copper to aluminum connections.
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Ahh, polaris connectors aren't outrageously expensive, it's not that life-ending a mistake. As long as they've left the wires long enough to redo it. :)

It is a relief to have a place to where you can discuss things like this in a open forum without some dimwit shouting at you trying to make his/her point.
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Well, I've been guilty of shouting a time or two, but in general you're right. ;)
 
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