We have told the story of our discovery about the grounding of our modest home of cinder block construction with metal electrical conduit and about how our neighbors house caught on fire in the middle of the night. https://reject5g.info/2022/04/02/house-on-fire-the-fourth-rod/ . The story continues as the hazards compound and we must raise further warnings. How does your garden grow? We all have choices before us about how we will live in the world as it is unfolding.
Our Homeowners Association was unresponsive to our request to help notify other HOA members that our electrical grounding systems may have been part of the problem and that our homes could be at elevated risk for electrical fire. Not only that, but they approved a neighbor on our boundary to constructed a sun pouch of aluminum construction, that has inadequate setback from our property. Although I am the established title holder, surveys are conflicting and it turns out, there were no as-built surveys done when the community was constructed so the entire plat could be in question.
The Aluminum Association of Florida has not returned email or phone calls from us inquiring about the safety of constructing an aluminum addition attached to cinder block with electrical conduit and a 25-year-old grounding system that of questionable code compliance when new.
Mike Holt has just a little bit of information on his forum. https://forums.mikeholt.com/threads/bonding-of-aluminum-structures.29047/
And then the City, who could not answer questions about our grounding systems and the possible electrical hazards of the aluminum construction, also allowed the sun porch to be constructed under a building code exception that allowed it to have plexiglass windows rated for only 75 MPH. Yes and who decided there would be no as-builts needed for the community? The City and the HOA.
So now I have potential wind and electrical hazards set back an inadequate distance from my home. Ah! How could they do such a thing? Let us take a trip back to 1997 and 1998 when the community was constructed with the metal conduit in cinder block and the grounding systems with a single grounding rod and who-knows-what-else.
The community has no as-builts, but in my building permit search for surveys, we did find the plans. And what we did find in those plans, was what was supposed to be installed for the electrical ground which is shown below.
We compared this to what we found in 2021. Our rod was about six inched deep, buried by our FPL Meter. The grounding rod has two wires connected by two connectors. One wire comes from the FPL meter to the rod and the second comes from the rod and goes under the slab. We can only hope the second wire connects to the pipe, steel and slabs it is supposed to.
One other code issue is that the soil in the community is sandy so it is likely the single grounding rod would not pass a 25 Ohm resistance test. How is there only one grounding rod? Is the cold water pipe intended to be the second grounding electrode and those two intended to meet the grounding requirement? Then the second wire that goes under the slab would be to the reinforced steel & all ext. slabs. & pool where applicable, intended for bonding.
So, what was the code? The riser diagram references part of the code as 1996 NEC (National Electric Code). A significant part of the NEC Code for grounding rods seems to have been established in 1978. As I am not a licensed electrician I will post my favorite responses from electrician’s blogs on when and what the requirements are. We will also note that how the code is interpreted and applied can be subjective and at the discretion of the local Building Department.
Link: https://www.electriciantalk.com/threads/when-did-code-require-2-ground-rods-on-200a-service.266204/ and favorite post: Not that simple.
1978 is when the requirement for a supplemental ground (in addition to the water pipe) was put in the NEC. That supplemental ground could be accomplished with many types of grounding electrodes, but it was most often done with rods. Using a second rod if not 25 Ohms was around for a long time, early 1900’s I believe. But up until 2008 the inspector was the one who had to prove that it wasn’t 25 Ohms. In the 2008 NEC they changed it so that the inspector could make the contractor prove it, or add a second rod.
Another Link discussing the above: https://forums.mikeholt.com/threads/when-were-driven-ground-rods-required-by-code.110096/
So, it could be argued that our installation had two grounding electrodes, although one could not be verified, so it would not be required to meet the 25 Ohm test. However, there is one more issue of how the two electrodes must be wired for the 25 Ohm requirement.
Link: https://forums.mikeholt.com/threads/grounding-electrode-conductor-continuous.112999/ Favorite post: Bonding vs grounding The purpose of bonding is to equalize potential of electrically-connected metal parts, the grounded conductor, and the structure of the building. The purpose of the GEC is to provide a low-resistance path to ground. They serve very different purposes. Code interpretation set aside, the connection between two ground rods is part of the GEC and a mechanical connection, rather than a continuous wire or being exothermically fused, offers much higher resistance, imho.
Participants in the above blog from 2014 do not come to consensus on the requirement for the continuous wire through the first two electrodes when both are required to meet the 25 Ohm requirement.
In another blog some participants use a diagram from the code that shows the first and second electrodes connected by bonding jumpers, but to not specify if the first electrode met the 25 Ohm requirement.
Link: https://forums.mikeholt.com/threads/interpretations-of-nec-250-64-c.6116/ Favorite Post: None. We think the use of the diagram is faulty. It does not address the question of the 25 Ohm requirement in the example.
The continuous wire seems to be more generally accepted as better practice that will pass inspections without problems from differences in opinions or variations in local code.
Indeed, the NEC Code has some obvious shortcomings as described in this more current article https://www.csemag.com/articles/electrical-grounding-and-bonding-per-nec/ including the obvious question about even two electrodes meeting the 25 Ohm requirement. Certainly, the two electrodes would be more likely to meet requirement if the wire is continuous. But NEC does not require the test if two electrodes are used. Then, there is the question about the 25 Ohm requirement itself, that has been the standard for a century while EMF has escalated.
If you consider the Grounded Electrode Conductor to be the first two Grounding Electrodes, NEC 250.64(C) on grounding electrode conductors, that requires the continuous wire, would reasonably apply. But NEC 250.53(C) on bonding jumpers suggest that the second electrode may be connected as a bonding jumper. Is NEC 250.53(C) and excuse to ignore NEC 250.64(C)?
It is the Electrical Riser in the plans for every home in my community that shows the installation I found, was not constructed per the code according to the plan. Looking at our Electrical Riser it would appear that the rod and cold water pipe connection were intended to meet NEC 250.64(C) as grounding electrodes, with a continuous wire, and the second wire was to go to reinforced steel & all ext. slabs. & pool where applicable, to meeting NEC 250.53 (C) as bonded connections.
We believe the plans required two grounding electrodes, that would be requited to be connected by a continuous wire. And that the grounding of our homes was not done according to the plans to meet the grounding code requirements. Now that one grounding electrode would be over 25 years old and woefully inadequate.
It is notable that, throughout the blogs on codes, the electricians discussions minimize the importance of grounding and even express that the standard should be set by the lesser ones of bonding. This is the perspective of those who work with 120V, 240V and even 480V systems. Your health depends on what is happening on the micro end as your brain operates over a range of approximately 0.000100V (100 mV). These are the waste voltages that need to leave the system by the electrical ground that is essential to the performance of your sensitive electronic and biological equipment.
We very much liked our upgrade to two grounding rods on a continuous wire from the Florida Power and Light (FPL) Meter. FPL requires other utilities on your ground to be manifolded as an Intersystem Bonding Terminal (IBT) as described in the FPL Service manual you can find here: https://www.fpl.com/partner/pdf/electric-service-standards.pdf.
The initial reduction we observed in the magnetic field of our home, as measured by an GQ EMF390 trifield meter was 30%. We added two more rods by attachment and have had an overall 40% reduction. It has been over a year since installation and stray voltages are still dropping very slowly. Our sensitive electronic equipment and our biological equipment is functioning much better.
We would suggest for other homes of construction similar to ours, that there be a continuous wire from the meter through three 8-foot grounding rods, each spaced 16 feet apart. For homes like ours of cinder block construction with metal conduit, we would also recommend the cinder block construction be maintained and sealed to keep the cinder block dry and non-conductive and to keep the slab and surrounding earth moist.
Besides the improvement in safety and to your sensitive electronic and biological equipment, the benefits of proper grounding of the house electrical system includes reduction of the surface ground voltage surrounding the house from energy coming off the slab and benefit to landscaping that may otherwise essentially be getting slowly electrocuted.
We are looking for better ways to live. For our garden at home that has not done well in the current environment that is being deployed on the world, we are looking at these very interesting ideas for our garden https://cultivateelevate.com/blog/electroculture-gardening-techniques-for-beginners-elevate-your-garden/ and https://ironcabin.co/electroculture/ . Amazon has supplies – beware of the winding jigs-they are counter-clockwise. We have already installed a few clockwise antennas and will be looking to see how things grow.
Yes, we would much rather have electroculture than electrocution of our garden.
