It seems that all too often I get called by someone who wants a ground for their computer where the house wiring has no ground. They've had the idea that I could just take a separate ground wire to the outside or to the panel.
I thought that was a code violation because it would be creating more than one path to ground, or something like that. The best that I could do, I would tell them, is to install a GFCI for personnel protection (per NEC 406.3(D)(3))and a surge suppressor for equipment protection.
But today I was reading an old article by Rex Caudwell in which he says that "neither a surge arrestor at the panel nor a point-of-use arrester at the appliance will work properly without a high quality grounding system to dissipate the surge."
So I decided to investigate further and found me 250.130(c), in which I was surprised
to learn that I can, indeed, run a separate EGC from an ungrounded recept right out to the GE or any point along the GE system.
So am I getting this right?
And if so, how could I have missed this all these years?
