Greetings,
I understand that I must ground my water pipe within 6 feet of where it enters the basement. My circuit breaker box is 40 feet away on the other side of the basement. Is there any reason why I cannot just insert another grounding rod near where the water pipe enters the basement and ground it there? Is there some requirement that the two grounding rods be tied together by anything but the water pipe?
Thank you for your time and energy, William
Greetings,
I think what the inspector means is that he won't count my grounding from the circuit breaker to the water pipe as a second grounding rod because it is grounded to the water pipe more than 6 feet from where the water pipe enters the building. What he actually said though was that the water pipe needed to be grounded within six feet of where it enters the building.
I called up to ask for clarification and it was reiterated that I needed to ground the water pipe within six feet of where it enters the building. This sounded like nonsense to me but I didn't want to argue with the inspector any more than I already was. Does this rule exist? Every word I say to this guy he somehow seems to turn into an argument in seconds so I don't want to get back into it with him. He is very clear on what he wants "GROUND THE WATER PIPE WITHIN SIX FEET OF ENTERING THE BUILDING" but it makes no sense to my little non-inspector brain.
Maybe there is a very good reason for it that I just don't understand.
Thank you for your time and energy, William
The water pipe must be grounded in case a live wire contacts it somewhere, causing a possibly lethal hazard for the plumber.
It may not be well grounded already even if the underground pipe outside the building is metal: soil, even when wet, is not a wonderful conductor. And who knows whether the pipe outside *is* even metal.
Perce
On 02/11/05 06:49 pm toller tossed the following ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:
Greetings,
The water pipe is connected to the grounding bus and the grounding bus is connected to a grounding rod -- all within 3 feet of the circuit breaker. I have jumpers over the hot water meter and between the cold and hot pipes to/from the hot water heater.
Hope this helps, William
So I still don't get it -- where does it say this thing about the 6 feet in the NEC or plumbing codes?
Greetings,
The water pipe is connected to the grounding bus but not within 6 feet of where it enters the house. Why the 6 foot rule? As you say who knows whether the pipe outside *is* even metal?
William
Greetings,
I understand your logic for why they want it connected -- and it already is connected with 4 awg solid copper -- but why must it be connected within 6 feet of where it enters the house? The water enters the house on the opposite side of the basement from where the electrical comes in. There is a water-pipe which runs right by the circuit breaker. Why run a 40 foot grounding wire when a 3 foot will do?
William
Article 250.52(A)(1) of the 2005 NEC: ..... "Interior metal water piping located more than 1.52 m (5 ft) from the point of entrance to the building shall not be used as a part of the grounding electrode system or as a conductor to interconnect electrodes that are part of the grounding electrode system."
Greetings, Does it actually say that somewhere in the NEC, etc? I don't want my code inspector making up code to enforce as he goes along. You are allowed to ground receptacle outlets to pipes when you replace a non-grounding receptacle outlet with a grounding one. Why don't the plumbers freak out about that? If the plumber disconnects the pipe between recepticle ground and the rest of the plumbing system the same problem could occur.
William
Greetings,
This still doesn't create a requirement for me to ground the circuit breaker to within a specific number of feet of where the water pipe enters the building does it? It is only 100 amps service and there is already a grounding rod with < 25 ohms impedance.
Thanks, William
Greetings,
The code section that John quoted did not appear to establish a requirement for me to ground to the water pipe within 5/6 feet unless I wanted to use the water pipe as part of the grounding electrode system which I don't think I need to do. I already have a grounding rod and the service is 100 amps. Is there a section within the NEC which requires this?
William
Article 250.52(A)(1) of the 2005 NEC: ..... "Interior metal water piping located more than 1.52 m (5 ft) from the point of entrance to the building shall not be used as a part of the grounding electrode system or as a conductor to interconnect electrodes that are part of the grounding electrode system."
William
I think I am going to replace the first 6 feet of water pipe with plastic and invite the inspector back over.
Deans
Presumably your water pipe comes in through the ground; why isn't it grounded already? I must be missing something; I don't even know why you would want it grounded. Is this a plumbing or electrical issue?
Your local electrical inspector Does NOT know code as well as he would like to think he does, although he is right up to a certain point. NEC Article
250.52 (A) (1) is what he is "alluding" to!! 250-52 Grounding Electrodes (A) Electrodes Permitted For Grounding (and then it lists them by numerical ascension) (1) Metal Underground Water Pipe. A metal underground water pipe in direct contact with the earth for 3.0 m (10 ft) or more (including any metal well casing effectively bonded to the pipe) and electrically continuous (or made electrically continuous by bonding around insulating joints or insulating pipe) to the points of connection of the grounding electrode conductor and the bonding conductors. INTERIOR METAL WATER PIPING LOCATED MORE THAN 1.52 m (5 ft) FROM THE POINT OF ENTRANCE TO THE BUILDING "SHALL NOT" BE USED AS A PART OF THE GROUNDING ELECTRODE SYSTEM OR AS A CONDUCTOR TO INTERCONNECT ELECTRODES THAT ARE PART OF THE GROUNDING ELECTRODE SYSTEM. As you can see, it says in the first part that the water supply into the house CAN be used as an electrode!! The 2nd part is saying if you do use the water pipe as one of the electrodes, you MUST make the connection WITHIN 5 feet of the "point of entrance" of the water pipe coming into the building!! So, as you can see, your local electrical inspector is wrong when he says 6 feet. NEC means 5 feet or LESS!!!!! He needs to get enrolled in a continuing ed program and stay on top of things!! And where I live, many is the electrical inspector that has tried to interprete code his way and I have always "called them" on it. I know the code well enough that I don't argue with them when I know they may be right, BUT they know that when I DO argue with them, they are in deep sh_t!!!!! I make it a habit to make my "grounding electrode connection" on the street side of the "house" shut-off valve and get it as close to the "point of entrance" as I can without "straddling" a fitting!!!!! Hope this helps you. Bruce Leiby___________________________________________ RBM wrote:
You're missing the point about this. The idea is not that the water pipe needs to be grounded (it already is, by virtue of being buried in the ground). The point is that the electrical code requires that metal water piping be bonded to the grounding electrode(s) for the electrical service to ensure that there cannot be any voltage differential between the plumbing and the electrical safety ground. Verify this with the inspector before doing anything, but I imagine what he means is that you need to have the grounding bus in your electrical panel connected to the water pipe, within six feet of where the water pipe enters the building -- most readily accomplished by running an appropriately-sized copper wire from the panel to within six feet of where the water pipe comes in.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)
Nobody ever left footprints in the sands of time by sitting on his butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?
Okay, a wire to a water pipe does not count as a ground unless it is within the first 5 feet. What does that have to do with the inspector's requirement that the pipe be connected to a ground within the first 6 feet.
That assumes
1) the electrical system is grounded to the water pipes, which appears not to be the case 2) the ground connection between the electrical system and the utility and the grounding rod are both open (as they are many times better path to ground than a plumber could possibly be)This is pretty silly, but then that doesn't mean you are wrong.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.