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Alright. We're back and today.
Where we've got another instant request from a
a listener a viewer,
a
subscriber, 1 of those
But anyway, we got an email from someone
and
they kinda we're getting confused about
grounding and bonding, which I
you have to say most people do.
So we're gonna talk about that. But before
we do that, make sure you hit that
subscribe button, ding on the bell that way
get notified next... Time, we post something, and
go ahead and leave a comment below because
I know this is a very interesting topic.
If you're a geek,
we'll just kinda clarify that right there. Because,
this we're gonna go into the weeds. I
know. We're gonna try to stay out of
the weeds,
but we may end up there. So...
Alright.
Do you wanna start with the share right
away? Yep. Yeah. Let's go with that. Okay.
Let's let's start with the share screen and
go to the first
there we go. There's our first.
So we'll just clarify that grounding and bonding.
I mean, they're 2 different
processes
or requirements on your electrical system
and are extremely important in your home.
But
they seem redundant
because of where you do some of the
connections? U.
But it's not. It still has... There's, like,
different reasons for the 2. Correct. So...
And if when doing
some research for this, You go to the
N epa's website, the National Fire protection agency.
And if you read their definitions of of,
rounding,
you'll probably come away even more confused.
And it was simply because they keep saying,
make sure you take this grounded bonded to
there and it's... So they're... I think they
need mean connect,
not bond.
Secure, they're saying bond like Connect. So then
now that word is getting overused and then
it becomes even more muddled, more confusing.
So I think it's important to understand that.
Grounding can also be called earth
depending on where you in the country. Right.
Right?
And it's also how the system is wired
to create what they call it ground fault
circuit.
So that's the pathway to ground.
Yes. You're lighting, your outlet, your mechanical. Right?
So like, you know, think about an outlet.
Right? You have a hot neutral in a
ground.
Yes. Now
if if you live in the Chicago land
area and you have conduit it, you've got
your hot, your neutral
and then the the metal box, the metal
conduit it,
and that becomes your ground. That's why when
you look at a the extension cords that
the rest of the country uses called Bro
x.
They have that ground wire in there. Mh.
That's
taking place of what we have in our
area of of metal conduit.
So
those those are interchangeable,
and so that's providing the ground.
Back to the panel.
Right. So
if you have... If you don't have Rome
x, that's why you don't always see a
ground in there because the the the pipe
is... The the Emt, the conduit does that
for you. But a good point on that.
Those if you were to remove the outlet
from the box. And say it's still hot
and you plug something in, your outlet may
still work, but it's no longer ground
because you could removed it from that metal.
Correct. A lot of times you'll see a
small green wire go from the back of
the outlet to the back of the box
so that you pull the outlet out, the
outlet is still rounded.
Right. And,
you know, they... That outlook could, like, get
perfectly placed where the screws not bonded to
or sitting on their tight enough. And it
can actually float in there and all of
a sudden that outlet no longer ground. Would
show an open ground when you do the
test. Correct. So that's why you'd... You'll do
the jumper off the outlet back to the
to the,
to the box. Right. And I can see
that a lot if you're doing say kitchen
outlets with a grad packs splash and you've
got spacers. And or you're relying on that
screw to make good contact with the plaster
ring in the back, and that plaster has
to make good contact check with the box
and the box. So I.
Correct. So 1 of the primary purposes of
the grounding goes for detection faults and like
system, and it provides a path recurrence back
from that fall point through the ground to
the source neutral point.
Which is all that's right here. Yeah. So
when you think about that ground, all that
stuff in the ground,
it's also going to your neutral bar, but
it's giving it path to earth or path
to ground.
So your neutral is always tied to that
neutral bar. You've got your other bar. That
1 on the bottom of that service panel
would be actually
something for you to put.
You know, if you had other pieces of
equipment, whether it's a phone box cable or
whatever those are you... Where you're gonna re
attach those.
So I think most places like in the
Chicago area, you can actually ground which it
shows here is like to your water pipe.
Yeah for the most part, you got 3
quarter or 1 inch copper k run out
for your water service so that's your ground,
did put strap or sale
clamp on that and that your ground.
Correct. We use plastic for our water lines,
so we have to put in the ground
rods.
Which are shown there.
Right here.
And then because we do all concrete block
and slam,
all of our rebar has to be We
have a building ground or steel, building steel.
So
on these ground rods,
there's a minimum of
2 that it's required because there's no way
to really test the impedance of these. So
now that's why they're requiring 2. Minimum of
6 feet apart and 8 feet long. So,
obviously, different parts of the country, you can't
get an 8 foot ground rod in. So
that's why you've got these different types of
wires, plates,
there's all different sizes. And you've just... If
you go to the
any nec c that'll show you exactly all
your different options for getting proper grounding.
So
with that,
this...
I think this was part pretty interesting. The
way you have to tie this in with
your building steel. Mh. In in your area
you're saying that this out actually goes up
and then ties in
to the... I would actually come up next
to our where you're
panel his or your service entrance so blow
a hole in the block. And if you
got a really good guy, which mine was.
He put a... They put up a plaster
ring. 2 gang class rings so that there's
a cover on there. We now anybody needs
to attach building steel for for ground
and our bonding, which we'll get to next
then that way they have some place that
is all... It's guaranteed to work. It's guaranteed.
It's all tied together.
Right.
So Okay. And like You said, that's a
low impedance path or static charges surges caused
my environment and anything, and it's getting it
back to ground to the earth.
Correct. Alright. So
that is
grounding.
Right.
So that brings us to bonding.
So bonding,
bonding is the practice of intentionally. I like
this this definition actually came up wikipedia.
Okay. Electrical bonding is the practice of intentionally
electrically connecting all exposed metal items,
not designed to carry electricity in a room
or building as protection from electric shock.
Bonding is also used to minimize electrical arcing
between metal services with electrical
potential differences.
Yes.
So so do you wanna talk about, let's
go to a... I just jump straight to
a swimming pool
And and what the potential is there.
Okay. Got you wanna explain that 1
and how you have to do that, at
least you know, for swimming pools so that
that way... Well, ours ours is probably a
little different than yours at some respects. So
because our our building steel
goes through our pool decks and our pool
shelves,
all of that rebar is bonded together to
begin with. But then we have another bond
has to go from the pool shell
directly to the equipment so that we have
an equipment bond so that there's no conduction
through water through pipe whatever so we have
an equipment bond tying that bolts out.
Is that when I learned about bonding, I
was actually building a job in in verbiage
ridge,
and I had a an an electrical inspector
fail a bathroom inspection because the tub with
my whirlpool tub was not bonded to the
drain.
And I had never done that before, And
I may asked him, you know, what's... I
don't understand what's the point of this. Right.
And fortunately, it was a good inspector warrant
at least I asked the question properly.
And he explained to me that because the
drain is brass, my water line is copper,
there's chrome on top of that,
brass and copper do not carry electricity at
the same potential. There's a variance in how
much electricity will flow on them.
If you had a pacemaker, and you were
holding
the shower valve, which happens to be brass,
and you stepped down the drain,
or the water line, you know, and they
connected to the copper, it literally could send
milliamps through your body. Mh. Which most people
would never notice us. Right. But if you
had a pacemaker, it could stop it. Yeah.
And that's where all this kinda came from,
and it started making a lot more sense
after he told me that. And I also
appreciated that. You know what Mean It's so?
Right? No. I get it. And never had
a problem behind since.
Because he took the time to explain it
to you. Yeah. Well, as when you go
online, it gets kinda confusing. So what's the
practical reason. Right? What is it really helping?
Right.
That's what it is. It's really about trying
to keep
the potential the same
in all your dissimilar metals in your home.
Or business for that matter. Right. But this
1, we're showing where we have our ground
over I in the bottom left, and then
that goes to your neutral terminal block But
you can see the bond jumper on the
chase way all the way to the right
and to the left, there's where you're bonding.
So now that case is gonna carry the
same. They do the same thing when they
get into the sub.
They put another bond on there. If I
was to touch the Chase or the panel
below,
the boxes are gonna be exactly the same.
I'm not gonna have a different in potential.
Correct. That's your service.
So that next slide, I think is really
good for more more for homeowners.
This is what needs to be done in
your utility.
And
a lot of the home inspectors today are
picking up on this not
not the municipal inspectors, but the
home inspectors that come in when you buy
a house or selling a house,
they're picking up on this now. And Well
if you look at the bottom of the
water heater, look who copyrighted did this. So
we have to give them credit. Oh, hey,
Na.
Yeah.
Yep international. Right? Yeah. So we've done a
lot of stuff with Na in the past
and
you know, done some of their training and
and had them on on even in the
past. You know, So I thought this was
actually a really good
drawing of what we're trying to talk about
and probably more importantly is when you see
that water line on the top there and
where the water meter is.
You see they put a jumper across.
Right.
Could you pull that water meter out as
what happens.
That... Yeah. You no longer have breaking your
bonds. So you have to put the jumper
over the meter. Same thing with your water
heater just because the 2 lines go in
and there doesn't mean they're gonna have the
same potential so you jumper across over the
water heater.
Right. Because in fact is that for some
reason, you drain that out
and not now you have the
you have... You don't have the water to
be able to complete that connection.
I guess the 1 thing that's missing here
is
if this is a gas dryer,
they also require you to go from
1 side, 1 pipe down to the gas
pipe also.
Yeah. I didn't find... I could not find
any that actually showed the gas pipe, but
that's... It I made that comment earlier, but,
yes, you'd wanna bond gas pipe.
So
These are... Yeah. These are fairly important here
that you gotta watch out for this 1,
and then you should have 1 more that
goes down to the gas
if you've got a gas water heater.
Mh. And and that way your your tying
all that together,
and you're eliminating all those potentials
and differences there. So
So do you think we've made this any
easier to understand?
I don't know about us. I think some
pictures help. Yeah.
So,
I guess,
I'd almost have to say
if you got questions,
drop them down below. We'll go ahead and
and do our best to answer them and
steer in the right direction.
And
just to circle back to what caused this
topic to come up in the first place
is
someone opened up an electrical
oven that they had,
and it had a ground, an isolated ground
coming from the panel
to the outlet.
And he had some friends that were telling
me he needed to then
put a jumper from that to the electric
box also,
but that's already
already bonded back to the panel. There's no
reason to tie those 2 together.
If there was an electrical shock,
you know, now you no longer have an
isolated ground from your appliance back to the
panel,
because you've bonded it
to the to the, electrical box. So Right.
You don't wanna do that.
So if if you have AA4AA4
conductor outlet, and has a ground, you put
your ground in there that's isolated,
back to the panel here.
So that's where that goes.
And that's what started the whole
the whole topic. We just wanna make sure
nobody gets shocked,
and this is bonding and grounding
are are really important and you need to
make sure that that it's all done correctly.
I wanna say with that, keep it square
level.
Till next time. Till next time. There you
go. Alright. And
Go tokyo shocked.
Don't shark.