I discovered this one during a bath remodel.

Under the lavatory, buried in the wall-





The conductor was spliced with a barrel crimp to 4 conductors above the ceiling, and the 4 wires were attached to the boxes in this fashion-





The branch circuit was supplied by this NM cable, containing a #16 ground wire, which was connected in the usual manner at the panel-





What do ya' think?




[This message has been edited by electure (edited 06-03-2005).]

Homestly, I think it's one of the better-done retro-grounding jobs I've seen. At least the nut and bolt were used for no ther purpose.

The ground strap is very common(original to the house)in the Bay Area, but I've only seen the reduced ground NM a couple of times.

steve

That's not a PLASTIC pipe in that first pic, is it?

Mike (mamills)

Looks like 1/2" copper to me...
/mike

Yes, it's 1/2" copper, and cast iron drain with really-by-golly lead and oakum joints.

This house was custom built in 1958. This is original as installed.

Hey Dude!!!
What were you doing in my house????
My place was done pretty much the same way.
See here https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000871.html

The ground was attached by the same type of clamp to the local water line in the bathroom and then around the nail for the box.

I'd be interested to see how connections like this would actually carry the high fault current that they are supposed to.
What sort of filler is that, in that piece of NM cable?.
It looks like it would burn pretty readily.

Wasn't the cold water allowed to be used as a GEC/EGC up until prior to '93 NEC? When did the 5' rule come up for point of connection to water? It was the way it was done for a while, not sure when that 'while' was though. It seems 40's- 60's.

Trumpy, that filler is craft paper, still used in romex, and other cables.

I remember dad using that cast-iron pipe. To seal it they rammed tow (oakum) and boss-white, (a mix of powdered chalk and linseed oil), in the annulus, followed by lead-wool hammered in with a wooden spoke. Another American pipe used in the UK at that time (late forties) was made of paper-pulp and molten tar,(made in a vacuum), with the ends taper machined. It was brilliant- light, strong & supple with foolproof joints- just hammered together with a dolly. Then upvc arrived.
Alan

Around here in NJ that kind of wiring was very normal. Most of the houses built and wired in the 50's-60's had a NM wire that had paper filler, and it had a derated #16 grounding wire. Some of the paper fillers even had a tar type of wrapping around them. It was also very common to ground the metal box out in the back of it using a bolt and a nut. The worst part about this job was that if you looked into the box when it was in a closed wall, you would loosen the screw (which you could see inside of the box). However you would be thinking that the screw went into a thread hole and not knowing that it was attached behind the box with a nut. Once the whole thing was loose, you were in trouble. You couldn't loosed it up anymore because the nut would spin behind the box and you couldn't tighten it back up because you couldn't get to the nut.

The grounding method shown above is common in homes built in the 50's, only thing is the conductor is wrapped around a nail,(so much for good contact).The asphalt pipe is called "Orangeburg" works fine until tree roots find the joints, (also was common in 1950's and 60's homes).

Yes, Trumpy. Here it is next to a piece of brand new 14-2 for comparison.




[This message has been edited by electure (edited 06-05-2005).]

Mmmmm... Comparision burning.