Ground Wire to Water Pipe

[JWelectric]

It has been three days and no response from you concerning the dangers you outline in this quote.

My point was, there is nothing mentioning 100 percent, as you made that up. If anything, broken sections of mixed metallic and nonmetallic pipe become more dangerous than this imaginary 100 prevent number you dreamed up. Don't give me your interpretation of code. I read code and code alone. Save your fairy tales for someone else.i know better

Lets discuss the statement you make about me making something up concerning bonding of “metal” water systems. Here is the code section in question;

250.104(A)(1) General. Metal water piping system(s) installed in or attached to a building or structure shall be bonded to the service equipment enclosure, the grounded conductor at the service, the grounding electrode conductor where of sufficient size, or to the one or more grounding electrodes used. The bonding jumper(s) shall be sized in accordance with Table 250.66 except as permitted in 250.104(A)(2) and (A)(3).

The key here is the first four words of this section, “Metal water piping system(s)”.
The code is addressing metal water piping SYSTEMS not integrated systems. A metal piping system will be complete 100% metal with nothing nonmetallic installed. Once any type of nonmetallic pipe or fitting is used the system is no longer a metallic system but becomes a mixed system. This is nothing more than common sense and nothing that I made up. It is written for anyone to read and comprehend.

I have respectfully asked for your opinion as to how this integrated piping system is more dangerous without response. I am always eager to learn something new and now is your chance to teach so please explain.
Should a pex piping system be installed according to your statement above then it would be a danger to the end user should they decide to use brass mixing valves unless these valves were bonded. I suppose that having a water pipe grounding clamp installed on the spout of the mixing valve would accommodate this.

A pex water piping system in most cases use brass fittings. Will these need bonding also? $4 for a clamp and about a $1.50 per foot for the copper to bond with, shucks the bonding will cost more than the piping system.
Once again I am respectfully asking for you to give us your opinion of why this is such a danger. I have used the code itself in my comments so please if you would use code references to show me the dangers you outline.

Public safety is the forerunner of my life. My job as a code enforcement official demands that I have my facts straight so please help me to understand the error of my ways.

 

[JWelectric]

You have posted in other threads so this means you have been back but you refuse to address this thread, why?
If you truly believe that having short sections of metal in a mixed piping system is dangerous please tell us why it is so dangerous.
One of us has something to learn here.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[hj]

quote; Educate us on just what makes this mixed plumbing so dangerous

It should be obvious. If you HAD an "all metal" system, being used as a ground, and it was repaired with a section of plastic, regardless of how small, you have DESTROYED THE CONTINUITY. However, if you assume you still have an all metal system and rely on that for your "grounding" purposes, ANYTHING beyond the plastic section, unless they is a jumper wire installed to bridge it, will be unprotected and therefore potentially dangerous to the occupant. It is short section(s) of plastic in a metal system which is dangerous, NOT the other way around.

 

[Reach4]

Remember jwelectric objects to a simple jumper between the hot and cold pipes of a water heater.

 

[JWelectric]

quote; Educate us on just what makes this mixed plumbing so dangerous

It should be obvious. If you HAD an "all metal" system, being used as a ground, and it was repaired with a section of plastic, regardless of how small, you have DESTROYED THE CONTINUITY. However, if you assume you still have an all metal system and rely on that for your "grounding" purposes, ANYTHING beyond the plastic section, unless they is a jumper wire installed to bridge it, will be unprotected and therefore potentially dangerous to the occupant. It is short section(s) of plastic in a metal system which is dangerous, NOT the other way around.

Only the part of a metal water pipe that is in contact with earth is used as a grounding electrode. If it is not in contact with earth then it is not part of the ground so again what is the problem.

 

[JWelectric]

Remember jwelectric objects to a simple jumper between the hot and cold pipes of a water heater.

This nis not required and is a waste of time and material

 

[hj]

quote; emember jwelectric objects to a simple jumper between the hot and cold pipes of a water heater.

WHY? I have found that that simple jumper sometimes prevents premature failure of some water heaters. I do not install it every time, but when a water heater fails within a couple of years, especially if it happens more than once, I do install the jumper and so far it seems to have extended the lives of the heaters I used it on.

 

[hj]

quote; If it is not in contact with earth then it is not part of the ground

You are jousting with windmills and trying to avoid the assininity of your argument.

 

[JWelectric]

quote; If it is not in contact with earth then it is not part of the ground

You are jousting with windmills and trying to avoid the assininity of your argument.

The word “ground” defined by the NEC is a connection to earth. In 250.52 there is eight methods for making this connection with metal water pipe in contact with earth for a distance of no less than 10 feet being one of them.

Should there be a complete copper water system in a building but the building is being supplied by a nonmetallic piping system then a connection to the copper is not grounding but instead it is bonding which is different than grounding.

In 250.4 it gives us four reasons why we ground our electrical systems. Safety of people is not mentioned. We connect our systems to earth in order to clear a high voltage event not to make the use of the electrical system safe. In a residential setting the most we could ever have to fault to ground is 120 volts. Having an almost perfect earth connection will not clear this fault. In order to clear a fault on a 15 amp circuit there must be less than two ohms of resistance on the grounding system which will never be on a residential system.

What makes our electrical systems safe is bonding. 250.24 requires that the grounding electrode conductor, all the equipment grounding conductors, and the service enclosure be bonded to the service neutral. It is this low resistance path that protects people. It works to protect people even without the earth connection.

Bonding the electrical system protects people and grounding protects the electrical system.

As to the bonding of hot to cold protecting the water heater let me tell you of something that protects light bulbs. When we first moved into this house we couldn’t keep a light bulb in the family room fixture. It was burning out every couple of days. Didn’t matter where we bought the bulbs at, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, or the grocery store, all would burn out within a couple of days.

One day I was at the barn messing around, don’t remember just what I was doing but the wind was blowing and it blew up an old yellow ribbon. I didn’t want the ribbon to end up in the front yard to be wrapped around the lawn mower blades so I picked it up and tied it to the frost free at the pasture. We haven’t lost a bulb since. I know for a fact that tying a yellow ribbon to a frost free will prevent bulbs from blowing. This ribbon makes just about as much sense as the bonding at the water heater does for protection.

I am eager to hear how the small sections of nonmetallic piping causes the piping system to be unsafe.
In order to understand one must have a full understanding of the difference between grounding and bonding which not many have. Through the misuse of language most think they are one in the same but there is a big difference between the two. How many times have you heard of the ground post of a car battery? Unless this post is connected to earth then by the definition found in the NEC then there is no ground connection on a car battery, it is the negative post. Of course there is no difference between the car battery and the battery in our flashlights. Let me see now, is there a ground in the flashlight?

The only place that grounding takes place is at the service equipment. This is where we connect our systems to earth. The equipment grounding conductors of our branch circuits are bonded to this earth connection at the service equipment and keeps all expose metal at earth’s potential. In the event of a ground fault it is the bonding of the EGC to the service neutral that clears the fault not the earth connection.

WHY DO WE GROUND?
250.4(A)Grounded Systems. (1) Electrical System Grounding.Electrical systems that are grounded shall be connected to earth in a manner that will limit the voltage imposed by lightning, line surges, or unintentional contact with higher-voltage lines and that will stabilize the voltage to earth during normal operation.

WHY DO WE BOND?
250.4(A)(3) Bonding of Electrical Equipment. Normally non–current-carrying conductive materials enclosing electrical conductors or equipment, or forming part of such equipment, shall be connected together and to the electrical supply source in a manner that establishes an effective ground fault current path.

Notice that the bonding is to the electrical supply source or the neutral and not to earth.