I went to a house today and saw something I hadn't seen before. The homeowner told me what had happened and that it was repaired by a licensed electrician, but the method was one I questioned.

At some point the outlets in the dining room "lost" the grounding conductor and no break could be found. The electrician basically made a neat junction box under the house and ran a copper wire to a cold water pipe and clamped it on, in effect regrounding the circuit.

Yes it works, and no it's not the way I would have fixed the problem. So my question is, have any of you seen this before and is it even close to code?

I guess it's a variation on 250.130(C)(1).
However, if it's connected to the waterline Grounding Electrode, it must be connected within 5 ft. of where the waterline enters the building per 250.52(A)(1).


[This message has been edited by Redsy (edited 10-23-2002).]

EE

The 1990 NEC was the last code cycle to permit the use of anywhere on the length of the water pipe. That was from 1990 250-50(b)exception.

The question goes to the age of the installation of the water pipe bond. Do you think it is old enough to be "grandfathered" in from the period that the 1990 NEC was enforced for the area the house you describe is in?

Al

Al, I don't think it's been more than a few years. So it sounds like it was probably some old timer just doing what they always did. I personally would have either run a new home run for the circuit or at least found another circuit to "borrow" a ground from. But the homeowner said if it wasn't dangerous, just leave it. So that what I did. Thanks for the info Al and Redsy.