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Nate Nagel

On 10/28/2013 02:19 PM, wrote:
On Monday, October 28, 2013 1:49:20 PM UTC-4, Nate Nagel wrote:

*If* you have a 10' long or longer metal underground water service, it

must be part of the grounding electrode system. However, you *must*

provide supplemental grounding in that case, and that has been the case

for quite a while. However, there are plenty of houses out there where

the ground/neutral bus in the main panel is bonded to the water piping

where it enters the house, and to no other supplemental ground, as that

was accepted practice in the 1970s and earlier. Those would have been

code compliant when built, but would not be code compliant today.

I agree. And I'm sure you agree that "not code compliant today"
doesn't mean that those older systems are now unsafe, have to
be upgraded, etc. As long as you're not replacing them, etc,
they can stay that way.

Agreed. I would, however, were it my house, consider adding some
supplemental ground rods if it was convenient to do so, just for peace
of mind. I probably wouldn't bother to rework any grounds to water pipe
however unless I had a good reason to do so. Also, would consider
adding GFCI receps definitely in the bathrooms if the house is old
enough to have dodged that requirement, additionally for clothes washer
etc. just for extra safety.

My main point was that Robert suggested that the
OP go look for anything like a CATV, Phone, electric panel, etc that
has a ground wire attached to the water service and that
it's no longer code. I believe we agree that to
have the panel grounded to the water service is part of
the current code, so that part of what was posted is 100% wrong.

And it's not unusual to find CATV, phone etc grounded to
a cold water pipe at various points where they come in to
an older house. That's how it was done in years gone by.
Even today you can do it as long as it's within 5 ft
of where the water service enters the house.

I had visions of the OP finding his CATV grounded to
a cold water pipe, or the panel connected to the incoming
water service and saying "Oh, there's the source of
my shocks or there's something that's wrong that needs
to be fixed because it's not code, etc".

Robert has since stated that he meant that the OP should
go find those ground points so that he can tell the electrician
where they are. Had he said that to begin with, I would not have
disagreed.

An even more direct idea would be to map out the portion of the
water system that is energized, follow it as much as
possible, see if anything is connected to THAT portion.
And see if that portion is seperated by some plastic
piping etc from the rest of the water system. If he finds
it has a PVC section separating it from the rest of the
metal piping, then the search can proceed for what's
energizing that section.

I'd say priority one is figuring out *what* is energizing the pipe; can
be done by unplugging equipment and/or turning off breakers. And the
most important point, if turning off the main breaker does not make the
issue go away, call in the pros and the power company TDS.

nate

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