Why not call it EBC instead of EGC?

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My drain pump went out in my upright washing machine last weekend and the amount of "grounding" material that was available under that thing was astonishing.

I let my wife know about the clean up part of it,,,, that's always been a tradeoff kind of thing between her and I for fixing the pump.
I got better things to do than that....

JAP>
 
mbrooke said:
Can I be honest? ;) I see a lot of resistance to change without much meat to back it up, almost like trying to find accuses because 'its always been like that'.
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Likewise, I often see efforts to change things that don't really need changing. You know how a software revision sometimes just moves things around because some designer had a "better" way to organize the menus? I hate that.
 
jap said:
You may have a point about not bringing the earth to the frame thing, but, as far as no earth existing within the frame of an appliance,,,, unless you've cleaned underneath your washer, dryer, refrigerator or freezer lately, I'd beg to differ. :)

JAP>
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But still not inside or around the chassis :thumbsup:


Take a look at this:


Grounding Conductor, Equipment (EGC). The conductive
path(s) that provides a ground-fault current path and connects
normally non–current-carrying metal parts of equipment together and to the system grounded conductor or to the grounding electrode conductor, or both.

Informational Note No. 1: It is recognized that the equipment
grounding conductor also performs bonding.

Informational Note No. 2: See 250.118 for a list of acceptable
equipment grounding conductors.
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When does an EGC connect only to an isolated ground rod or electrode?

Yes I know seasoned code experts will argue ungrounded receptacles during a conversion can drop an EGC to a GEC- but technically its still connected to both or at least needs to be. Its small play on words like this that keep myths alive.
 
ggunn said:
Likewise, I often see efforts to change things that don't really need changing. You know how a software revision sometimes just moves things around because some designer had a "better" way to organize the menus? I hate that.
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And for some folks in the trade it might be confusing at first, but the confusion caused to new comers is even greater- or the risk from those long standing who are perpetually confused. In all honesty we have definitions and an article 250 from a time when it was believed that earth did all the work of protection and fault clearing. Latter words and structures were added to kind of differentiate between grounding and bonding- and get the desired results- but the foundation based on false beliefs is still there.
 
mbrooke said:
But still not inside or around the chassis :thumbsup:


Take a look at this:





When does an EGC connect only to an isolated ground rod or electrode?

Yes I know seasoned code experts will argue ungrounded receptacles during a conversion can drop an EGC to a GEC- but technically its still connected to both or at least needs to be. Its small play on words like this that keep myths alive.
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It doesn't say isolated. Also at least one part of Chapter 8 allows for an EGC to be connected to the GES. See 810.21
 
mbrooke said:
Can I be honest? ;) I see a lot of resistance to change without much meat to back it up, almost like trying to find accuses because 'its always been like that'. This is not to bash anyone, but I think this is partly why the NEC is becoming bureaucratic. We should be trying to simplify the NEC, make it more understandable rather then keeping it muddy while pilling more on top of that.
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I'll be just as honest and say I see a lot of clamoring for change for no good reason. I spent the better part of a half an hour talking with an inspector about why my equi potentional bonding wire for an in ground hot tub did not need to go all the way to the breaker panel. I showed him in the code book where it says not to. He muttered, "That doesn't make any sense."

Tossing the term bonded into the NEC is not going to help him out. My example of telling a first year that you only bond the neutral at the service and then you tell him go inside and make sure everything is bonded together is not helping his understanding.

I don't care if the NEC changes it's language because I know what each conductor does so it won't matter to me. Go plead your case with the powers that be till they relent.

I do agree with you that what is being done to art. 250 is making things harder to understand and that is a shame.
 
mbrooke said:
Can I be honest? ;) I see a lot of resistance to change without much meat to back it up, almost like trying to find accuses because 'its always been like that'. This is not to bash anyone, but I think this is partly why the NEC is becoming bureaucratic. We should be trying to simplify the NEC, make it more understandable rather then keeping it muddy while pilling more on top of that.




That is true- but still we have a misnomer. No matter what you are not bringing earth to the frame of an appliance, nor does earth exist within the frame of an appliance, ie "ground fault"
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I really don't think it matters what you change term names to - they will still be misunderstood by about the same number of people, you will still have many out there that cut off that third prong of a cord cap because they figure out it still works even with that missing, and "grounding" has been drilled into the head of so many (professional as well as no professionals) as being very important and that any mess up with "grounding" makes things dangerous, when reality is it is "objectionable current paths" and ground fault situations with no low impedance return path that are the biggest safety hazards.
 
ActionDave said:
I'll be just as honest and say I see a lot of clamoring for change for no good reason. I spent the better part of a half an hour talking with an inspector about why my equi potentional bonding wire for an in ground hot tub did not need to go all the way to the breaker panel. I showed him in the code book where it says not to. He muttered, "That doesn't make any sense."

Tossing the term bonded into the NEC is not going to help him out. My example of telling a first year that you only bond the neutral at the service and then you tell him go inside and make sure everything is bonded together is not helping his understanding.
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Isn't the term main bonding jumper? A MBJ is different from an EBC. As is EGC, but again you aren't extending the ground to protect the user.


I don't care if the NEC changes it's language because I know what each conductor does so it won't matter to me. Go plead your case with the powers that be till they relent.

I do agree with you that what is being done to art. 250 is making things harder to understand and that is a shame.
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Not just article 250, but the whole code in general.
 
ActionDave said:
Don't even get me started on the alphabet soup in 250, MBJ, SBJ, SSBJ, EBJ uuggghhhh. How many different ways do we need to describe a way to clear a fault?
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Some of those can be condensed- but Id rather deal with the correct terms (ie main bonding jumper, equipment bonding conductor) then full blown misnomers.
 
mbrooke said:
Some of those can be condensed- but Id rather deal with the correct terms (ie main bonding jumper, equipment bonding conductor) then full blown misnomers.
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How 'bout we get rid of all of them and condense it down to one term.....Bond. You bond the neutral to case and the earth at the service or at an SDS and you don't bond again, ever. Simple, elegant.

Every thing else is normal current- grounded conductor and fault current- equipment grounding conductor. I can teach it to a first year in one hour and then a half hour of re instruction after he tries to wrap his head around for a while and comes back to ask questions.

They've got 250 so screwed up now with all these silly terms you need a spreadsheet. They weren't there when I learned all this, and I don't even know all of them because I don't use them.
 
ActionDave said:
How 'bout we get rid of all of them and condense it down to one term.....Bond. You bond the neutral to case and the earth at the service or at an SDS and you don't bond again, ever. Simple, elegant.

Every thing else is normal current- grounded conductor and fault current- equipment grounding conductor. I can teach it to a first year in one hour and then a half hour of re instruction after he tries to wrap his head around for a while and comes back to ask questions.

They've got 250 so screwed up now with all these silly terms you need a spreadsheet. They weren't there when I learned all this, and I don't even know all of them because I don't use them.
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Thats what article 250 ought to look like. :happyyes::happyyes:
 
JFletcher said:
Erm, isn't grounding generally for a fault path and bonding to keep 2 or more surfaces/objects at the same potential?
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You proved my point :D Bonding provides a fault path and keeps objects at the same potential. Grounding is so lightning can be dissipated to earth. Grounding can also help with incidental contact at high voltages on the utility side by giving a path through the earth.
 
JFletcher said:
Erm, isn't grounding generally for a fault path and bonding to keep 2 or more surfaces/objects at the same potential?
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ActionDave said:
Thank you for helping illustrate my point that the term bonding does nothing to eliminate confusion.
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I agree. Those that don't study and understand the technicalities still see all terms with the words grounding or bonding in them as being the same thing. Changing EGC to EBC won't do anything for those people, you must know what the intended function is before you can begin to make any sense out of it, yet we also want only a two or three word phrase maximum as the name for these things.
 
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