ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Grounding Electrode Conductor Connector?

This is a good example of my observation that as time goes on, some aspects of accepted quality standards deteriorate. (Has anyone else noticed 25 NM homeruns bundled on a basement sole plate with no regard to derating?) I also never liked the 2-piece NM connectors (Tomic) that provide little, if any actual securing to anything without squeezing the daylights out of the 8 cables passing through them.
I always used to connect the GEC with a romex connector, until I got back into resi work and noticed all of the new homes have it poked through. Now I'm not sure which is correct.
I also noticed that the "weep holes" were on the top as well
as bottom, but figured that the manufacturer wanted to make sure that the orientation of the panel was irrelevant.???????

We take a short piece of 1/2 or 3/4 pvc drill a hole in the bottom for the ground wire to run out of and bury the rest in ground.Protect for phy. damage They won`t let run unprotected, looks neat.Other words knock out hole in bottom box install pipe from box down in ground and drill hole hear rod and fish out ground wire hook to rod done.

Look here on the right side of the page where the fitting looks like the one used above.

http://www.bptfittings.com/main.html

I also reviewed the contractor's corner, and it was helpful.

Bottom line, although the "weep hole" has been used for the GEC in many installations, is that the hole is not really designed for that use!

The bonding of the enclosure to the GEC is required by the code, and cannot be accomplished without the use of a properly designed fitting. I would leave a RED TAG on a service if I found that the "weep hole" was uused for the GEC.

The best way to settle this issue is to submit a proposal to CMP 5 and I would be willing to bet, that the comment rejecting it would be similiar to my comment above.

So, then the bond through the bond screw or equipment ground bus mounting screws doesn't count?

How does one bond it to the enclosure when using PVC for protection?

[This message has been edited by sparky66wv (edited 09-16-2002).]

Bill,

Perhaps a bad bond was part of the problem but, my point is I feel that it is better to secure that GEC where it enters the panel. Or, on the other hand, if you can't use a NMC connector because it isn't listed then it should enter the panel by some sort of raceway, either PVC or EMT (properly bonded of course) but by no means should it be allowed to "float" inside of that 1/4" or 5/16" hole unsecured where arcing could ever become a problem.

Joe - I'm with sparky66wv on this one. The code requires the Grounding electrode conductor to be bonded to the enclosure but this is accomplished by connecting it to the ground or neutral buss that is bonded to the enclosure. The connectors shown on link you provided are for AC/MC cable not bare copper. If you use armored wire or install it in a raceway how are you supposed to bond the wire? The armor or raceway must be bonded with a bonding LN or grounding bushing but the wire still just gets connected to the buss.

Curt

[This message has been edited by caselec (edited 09-17-2002).]

arcing?


what would be the effects of lightning mitigation via unsecured 5/16 vs. a connector holding the GEC?

Steve, could you elaborate?

Joe,

Given that you would present a RED FLAG, which NEC section would you quote?

I'm not trying to be hard to get along with, I genuinely want to know.

Thanks!

Since the subject is of panelboard cabinets and the weep hole, would 312.5(A) and (C) be of interest?

A few weeks ago Joe T had some discussion of the definition of cable vs conductor.

Though, the text does not specifically state "Conductor" in 312.5 being secured to a cabinet, it does say "Conductors".
312.5(B) ends with " - - - and firmly secured to the enclosure." and 312.5(C) states in part " - - - each cable shall be secured to the cabinet, - - -."

Seem to me that any conductor or cable entering an enclosure needs to be secured to the enclosure so that any abuse to that/those conductors will not be transmitted to the conductor termination within the enclosure.

As an example see 527.4(I).

When that requirement was added to ( 305-4(i) ) the substantation was when secured to the enclosure, stress would not be transmitted to the terminal(s) within enclosure.

How can I reduce the width of this post so that it can be read with-out using the horizontal slide bar ( and also print ) ?