Several of us have been looking over the grounding requirements for a house. Can not find in the code if the ground wire from the house to the ground rod has to be solid or can it be stranded. Also insulated or not insulated. The standard practice seems to be solid, uninsulated wire in the area, but does the code state that anywhere ? All we can find is the size and it must be ran in as direct as possiable.
It can be solid or stranded, bare or insulated. I'll try and find the code. What would you do if you need a #2 grounding conductor in solid copper?
Thanks for the reply . We were talking about a normal house where # 6 seems to be the standard in this area.
If I could afford a house that needed # 2 I doubt I would be here asking about the ground wire :-)
Uh, rob a bank first?
No. 4 solid uninsulated copper is the defacto and is carried on most utility company trucks. The reason No. 4 is used is because it can be run open where not subject to physical damage without a raceway. A No. 6 generally has to be installed in a raceway..
REF:
310.3 Stranded Conductors. Where installed in raceways, conductors of size 8 AWG and larger shall be stranded. Exception: As permitted or required elsewhere in this Code. 250.64 (B) Securing and Protection Against Physical Damage. Where exposed, a grounding electrode conductor or its enclosure shall be securely fastened to the surface on which it is carried. A 4 AWG or larger copper or aluminum grounding electrode conductor shall be protected where exposed to physical damage. A 6 AWG grounding electrode conductor that is free from exposure to physical damage shall be permitted to be run along the surface of the building construction without metal covering or protection where it is securely fastened to the construction; otherwise, it shall be in rigid metal conduit, intermediate metal conduit, rigid nonmetallic conduit, electrical metallic tubing, or cable armor. Grounding electrode conductors smaller than 6 AWG shall be in rigid metal conduit, intermediate metal conduit, rigid nonmetallic conduit, electrical metallic tubing, or cable armor.
I have a calculator that determines the size of the grounding electrode conductor at:
Thanks for the number. I looked it up at work to see what it said. I don't know how two of us could have missed it. We were all around it.
I work in a very large plant as an electrician and instrument technician. I don't have to know the code or really deal with it. One of the coworkers is licensed and we were talking about the code and looking in the books and just could not find it . I had asked him the question of the grounding conductor going from the breaker box to the ground rod. He did not know for sure and we just kept overlooking it. All he knew for sure is what was usually done in the local area for a normal size house.
Part of this was because I am a ham radio operator and had put up a 60 foot tower and wanted to know what the code said about having several ground rods and how to connect them . I knew all the rods needed to be bonded, but still wanted to see how the code related to ground rods and wiring.
I'll tell you how I found it. Bout half an hour before your post, I received in the mail, my new 08' NEC book, not the usual code book, the one that has twice as many pages, cause it has lots of pictures , diagrams, and explanations, so I know WTF their talking about. I opened the book up to grounding and there was a picture of a ground rod and conductor, with the answer to your question written all over it. Pure luck
We were looking in the same type book. The one with all the drawings in it. It just happened to be the one from a few years ago. After getting the code number we looked in the older book again and there it was. We have just the code book for 08 and not the illistrated book. It is on order. Nothing like looking in over 1000 pages for about 2 lines of text......
I don't need the code for what I do and the coworker does not need it for work, but he does some work outside the plant. Just not enough to really keep up with all the information. I thought someone here that uses the code would be able to tell us the correct answer.
I was the inspector on a big radio equipment shelter and tower project, putting dozens of these around several counties. They used a grounding system that picked up the foundation of the shelter building, a ground ring, the pad and foundation of the tower and buried bare copper radials going to rods out about 50 feet from the tower. It created a good ground plane for the transmitter and a great grounding electrode for lightning and other transients that would affect the service
A 60 ft tower does sound like a good lightning target unless you live in Nome. You might want to look at 810 also.
Thanks for the reply. I am aware of the 810 part and also have much more information on the actual tower grounding. You put all the ground rods and such in the ground that you can afford...
The question I and a coworker had was just what the code said about the wiring tying all this back into the power ground electrode and wiring. Just could not find in the code book what type of wire and insulated or not was the code. I think it was RBM that saw in that big code book the acutal code we were overlooking.
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