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subject to damage?

ICE

ICE

Oh Well
Joined
Jun 23, 2011
Messages
12,923
Location
California
The GEC is a #6 located at the front of the house within a planter. Would you call this subject to physical damage?

 
ICE said:
The GEC is a #6 located at the front of the house within a planter. Would you call this subject to physical damage?
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I would let it ride since it is tight to the wall, but if the rod was further out in the planter I would require protection.
 
An electrical service upgrade has been installed in order to add solar. The solar company did the install. They don't know a lot about the electrical trade and even less about plumbing.



The GEC is exposed at the back of the building where the panelboard is located and it needs protection (I don't like it exposed in the planter either). The workman suggested armored #6. Knowing that all ends of the armor shall be bonded, I told him that a better option would be to hit the hose bibb that's 6' from the panelboard, abandon the rod at the front and drive another rod >6' from the rod near the service.

He said that he knows that the GEC shall reach to within 5' of the point of entrance of the water main. He further stated that he didn't want to get into the habit of doing it wrong so he does it exactly the same way every time. He told me that he works primarily in Long Beach and that's a big city so I should require the same as they do in Long Beach.

Wanting to be agreeable, I told him that from now on, if we cross paths again, he and I, well doggone it, we'll do it the Long Beach way every time.

When I said that, I could see him relax....it was like I became safe to be around because he's got the Long Beach way down pat.

The inspection request was for el. service upgrade. I arrived at 11:00am....they said that I was early because they requested a PM inspection. I told them that I don't do these in the dark.

 
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TheCommish said:
why drill there was an available hole
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Chris might have been talking about securing the GEC to the surface that it runs upon. Speaking of the runs....remind me to not touch anything while I'm there.
 
jar546 said:
And, where is the compliance with 250.94?
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Whenever I see a code section I go take a look and when I saw the heading, I thought I knew all. Then I noticed that there's a lot of words in 250.94 for such a simple concept.

Lo and behold, look at the exception.

250.94 Bonding for Other Systems. An intersystem

bonding termination for connecting intersystem bonding

and grounding conductors required for other systems shall

be provided external to enclosures at the service equipment

and at the disconnecting means for any additional buildings

or structures. Yada, yada, yada

Exception: In existing buildings or structures where any of

the intersystem bonding and grounding conductors

required by 770.93, 800.100(B), 810.21(F), 820.100(B),

830.100(B) exist, installation of the intersystem bonding

termination is not required. An accessible means external

to enclosures for connecting intersystem bonding and

grounding electrode conductors shall be permitted at..blah, blah, blah
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When does a building become "existing" The day it gets a CO? The day after? A year later? Obviously, this dwelling qualifies so what am I missing here? It appears as though service upgrades are exempt.

But wait a minute now, if there are no intersystem bonding and grounding conductors the exception goes away.

Note that this is specific to the bonding and grounding conductors and not the system.

This is backwards.
 
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When you replace an electrical service, the new service must be compliant. When you replace an electrical service, you remove the old service and therefore remove the grounding system for the existing cable tv, telephone, fiber optic, etc. so you have to start over.Most of the time we see them split bolt onto the GEC which is not being replaced. Sometimes we see that piece of crap that is attached to the meter base like this one:

View attachment 766

this one that gets removed. But maybe the phone or cable company ran their own ground rod and we just don't see the connection in the photos.Still trying to find the wire to that 2nd rod tooView attachment 766

/monthly_2013_07/572953c9b69ca_ScreenShot2013-07-21at2.15.33PM.png.1fb7b196d1a9cfc11246725da04ddb9d.png
 
The other rod is at the opposite side of the house below the panelboard.
 
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jwelectric said:
Was there a bond on that metal waste water pipe? I think that 250.104(A)(1) will require one
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There is waste pipe, and there is water pipe but there is no waste water pipe. And no fatboy, this is not a bong either.

Whatever this pipe is called, there's a good chance that the rod runs through it. Oh crap there's the runs again.

I'm still waiting for someone to notice that the water main is plastic.
 
ICE said:
The GEC is a #6 located at the front of the house within a planter. Would you call this subject to physical damage?
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Don't have my book handy to pull up the code section, but my understanding is that the entire 8 feet of ground rod must be fully driven into the ground to be compliant. From looking at the picture, driving the last 3 or 4 inches of rod into the ground would certainly subject the wire to damage (as it would pull it off the wall, etc.)
 
jwelectric said:
This is a metal pipe and it carries water so is it bonded
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This is a good example of the (s) found in 250.104(A)(1) and the bonding requirements found therein that anyone could post. Many will argue that the (s) means hot and cold but never require a bond to the metal pipe pictured. The (s) includes this pipe.
 
jwelectric said:
This is a metal pipe and it carries water so is it bonded
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That metal pipe carries air. Further on down the line, the pipe will carry water....and other stuff. It is not likely to become energized and therefor it is not required to be bonded.

250.104(B) Other Metal Piping.

Where installed in or attached to a building or structure, a metal piping system(s), including gas piping, that is likely to become energized...
 
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