Today I had the pleasure(?) of sitting through a three hour meeting with the big wigs of the home builders association and several other sub-contractors reviewing a list of codes that will be enforced in my local jurisdiction.

The problem is we have three county inspectors and all of them have different opinions on grounding, bonding, smoke detectors and so forth. Structural issues are also hit or miss when it comes to notching and boring.

Well I'm going through the list and 95% of the codes agree with the NEC but a new bonding requirement made no sense to me.

The new bonding rule will be to bond the "hot" and cold copper water pipes to the service at the water heater. Now this is new to me and I would like some opinions on this issue.

We bond cold water lines but never the hot. I was under the impression that dielectric unions were used on water heaters to keep the lines from pitting. Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Arseegee:
We have been bonding the H&C water pipes at the water heaters for quite a while.

Reason: The pipe entry points are plasticlined, therefore no mechanical metalic bond on the "hot" water piping.

This applies to elec and gas HW htrs, and is required on a service upgrade, or replacement of elec water heaters. Logic is a permit is required for an electric water heater, so the EC has to bond; gas water heaters require a plumbing permit, and the plumbers cannot do EC work.

I can't give you an article, my stuff is in the twp car.

Take care & Happy Holidays.

John

Hi,
Metal water or gas pipes and BUILDING STEEL...IF THEY EXIST...Shall be bonded to the GEC.

You should also be bonding the motor case of spas or whirlpool tubs to a #8 solid to any copper lines around the spa and water meter too.

The handbook shows a bond around the water meter and then to building steel.

HW supply line makes sense, it is COPPER.

I do not see any problem there myself. What is the concern?

-regards

Greg



[This message has been edited by mustangelectric (edited 12-09-2004).]

We bond it in Jersey have been for awhile, building steel,water feed jumping water meter ands hot water heaters above there valves.

Thanks for the replies guys. It's old dog - new tricks i guess. I am just use to only bonding the cold in the five other jurisdictions we work in.

I know art 250 requires all metal piping to be bonded but was under the ASSumption that the hot was not to be bonded. But we all know about assumptions.

And yes we bond whirlpool motors too, but all the resi water meters are fed by PVC then PVC to the house.

Thanks

Ron, Up here in North Georgia, we've been doing this for years. I'm surprised you haven't already been doing this. How've you been doing? You haven't been around much any more. Didn't you have back surgery?

Hi David, yeah I quess were behind the times here. As for me, my back surgery went fine. I have to be careful as to what I do but I'd say I am 95%. I have been busy this year, not so much with the biz (which has been off some... bummer) but I built a new house and had my first child last month. A little girl who will be my office manager one day...lol.

How has your year been? I fell behind on my commercial bids while building my house but it's been nice to have some time with my wife and child. I'll be slammed here in a few weeks though. We have dozens of new houses coming out of the ground to go on top of the 20 we have going right now and I got the bid on 25 convenience stores and 40K sqft of retail space. So if you get caught up, gimme a call!

Take care, and I am so sorry Ga Southern didn't woop up on the Dawgs earlier this year... just kidding.

[This message has been edited by arseegee (edited 12-09-2004).]

I'm sorry they didn't woop up on them either.

GO JACKETS!

Make perfect sense to me. Would a jumper simular to a water meter jumper work?

As for pitting in the water lines, that is typically caused where the water heaters coating on the core has been compromised (by age and electrolisys (spelling?) typically in an electric water heater where anode replacement was not kept up). The iron particles from the deteriating water heater then migrate into the copper water lines where gravity pulls them to the bottom of the pipes when waterr is not flowing. The iron comes in contact with the copper (dissimilar metals) and causes the pitting.

Shane

I thinkthe plastic linings in common use are the reason for the grounding - the old metal-to-metal ones self grounded through the CW feed.


The comment about pitting reminds me of when I replaced the short 'jack leg' run to a water softener that had been installed in my mom's house by the previous owner.

Die-electric? Whazzat? Why would I want to kill the electric?

I'll jest connect the copper to the old steel pipe - the threads match...

Of course, by the time I got in there, the 3/4" CU had in ID of about 3/8" due to calcifications... took me a whopping 15 minutes to cut out the softener run and re-do correctly.

[This message has been edited by DougW (edited 12-19-2004).]