Electrical Code question – concerning st
cuyahoga
| Posted in General Discussion on
Hi ya”ll
Hey, we had some trouble with our street lights on our street.
The lights belong to the Homeowners asscociation and are , more likeyard lights along the street…all the lights on one feed quit working.
Turned out that the hot wire from the fuse to the first light in the series went bad. So the electrician used the gnd and made it the hot and then at that first light post drove a gnd rod and picked up the gnd there.
Everything is working, but I was wondering if we should be concerned having the one earth gnd at the fuse box and then the second at the first light pole, which is about 200 feet away.
Thanks for reading.
Cuyahoga
Edited 9/10/2007 8:47 pm ET by Cuyahoga
Edited 9/10/2007 8:48 pm ET by Cuyahoga
Replies
tottaly ..not acceptable
This "Electrician" have a license of any sort?
Did it say Kmart on the back?
Cash only deal, no checks accepted?
Joe H
That 'solution' sets the stage for the future electrocution of a gardener, passerby, or family pet. It is so wrong as to be scary.
Find a REAL electrician. Expect him to dig. Sue the hack for refund ... and report him to the authorities.
>>>So the electrician used the gnd and made it the hot and then at that first light post drove a gnd rod and picked up the gnd there.
Are you sure about your detail? (Having made only four posts to this site, I have to wonder, but don't take offense to that).
I can't imagine even a blissfully ignorant HO taking on a neighborhood project with such a breathtaking degree of stupidity.
Scott.
Always remember those first immortal words that Adam said to Eve, “You’d better stand back, I don’t know how big this thing’s going to get.”
Completely unsafe and illegal. Have somebody dig a trench and fix it the right way as soon as possible.
Walnut Hill Construction
Thanks for your replys. The Licensed Electrician didn't say anything about this not being a code vilolation.
And since the lights are all working, the other neighbors might want to leave things the way they be.
We are having a Home Owners Association meeting in a couple of days ( Scott , I think you misunderstood, the HO's did not take on this project, we hired a Licensed Electrician to come in and tell us what is wrong and to fix it), and I was wondering if there were any facts as to why this is an unacceptable fix. Like in what senario would this be danderous and why.
Thanks again,
Dave
Edited 9/11/2007 9:13 am ET by Cuyahoga
The three conductors going from fuse to the the light post and then to the next post, etc... are three seperate 2/0 or 1/0 tw wires. They are all three insulated ( of course) , so the gnd wire is seperate and it is insulated...
so if there was a voltage leak on the hot, underground between the fuse and the first post.... how effective would the gnd be, given the fact that it heavily insulated? Is this original wiring scheme done by the developer correct?
Thanks gang
Could these be low voltage lights ?
good question, no they are 120v.
they are 100w metal hylide fixtures
I'm wondering if it's still possible that someone has misunderstood what the original electrician did. For instance, did he use an otherwise unused conductor and just neglect to mark it hot (as someone might with a switch leg where they use white as black and should mark it with tape?)
Sure sounds odd...PaulB
Paul,
No , no misunderstanding..I was there , he told me. There are these three 2/0 or 1/0 individual/insulatted wires coming from the fuse panel...one is for Hot , one is for Nuetral and one is for GND.
Proper voltage was not getting to the first lamp post. The electrician said the Hot wire was bad...so he reassigned the GND wire and used it for the Hot, to get the lights working. Then he drove a GND rod at the first lamp post and used that to get the GND for the first post and then pass it along down to the second post, etc.
Call up the city inspector and have it inspected.
You didn't say if you were there to see what the electrician did or if you heard this secondhand. To be honest though, it doesn't really matter. :-) What matters is what the inspector states or perhaps your insurance company. The electrician you hired won't redo the work based upon an amateur's opinion. He'll only redo things based upon what the inspector says.
Express your concerns to the inspector and have him take a look.
Glen
Glen
I called the county inspector today and expalined the situation. He said it wasn't proper code, but would work, and that it could pose a slight risk. He didn't seem to interested in where it was, didn't ask for loacation or act like he wanted to come out.
I think I'll call and see if I can schedule them to come out and put something official in writing.
I really think the electrician knows that it needs trenched and new wires put in, but I think someone on the Homeowners Assiciation was trying to avoid that additional cost.
I myself , just don't like things being done incorrect, because it's one thing and then latter another and then eventually it will come back to haunt you. I've always felt ( within reason) to keep things up and properly maintained.
Thanks for listening.
For the sake of clarity, let me explain a few things about electricity. We use the terms 'grounded' and 'grounding' in misleading ways. From the standpoint of electrical safety, neither term has anything to do with Mother Earth. The Space Shuttle has 'grounded' conductors, and a 'grounding' electrode ... but I think we can see that it has NO connection with the ground beneath our feet. It's better to look at it this way: All electricity has a source. In your home, the source is the power company transformer. All electricity (the 'hot' wires) has but one purpose: to get back to it's source. That is, to get back to the very transformer that created it.
All the code requirements and trade practices regarding the 'neutral' wire are there to make sure the electricity has a nice, clear path back 'home.'
The 'ground wire,' on the other hand, is there for the same reason your water heater has a drip pan; it is intended that any 'leaking' electricity is also able to find a safe and easy path 'home.' If you remove this ground wire, you are eliminating that safety feature. The 'ground rod' has nothing to do with that ground wire. Banging a rod in the ground might give you some lightning protection ... but it will NOT help return 'lost' electricity 'home.' The electric code is quite clear: you are NEVER to use the earth itself as a 'grounding conductor.' Electricity that leaks - say, because water gets into a fixture - will try to find its' way home. It will take any and all ways .... it cares not that the easiest path might be through the family beagle who just 'watered' the lawn nearby. Hope I've explained this well enough.
I think you're confusing the ground with the neutral. The ground wire does, indeed, have a lot to do with mother earth; that's one thing it's connected to. The OP stated that the original circuit had a ground, a neutral, and a hot conductor from the panel. With the hot bad, the electrician hooked up the original safety ground wire to the breaker and the first light and used it to provide power. Then he drove a rod into the earth to provide a safety ground there at the first light, since there was no longer a connection back to the ground rod at the panel. As I understand it, the original neutral wire is still there and functioning.I don't know code, but it obviously works and it should provide adequate protection from electrocution.George Patterson
"Then he drove a rod into the earth to provide a safety ground there at the first light, since there was no longer a connection back to the ground rod at the panel. As I understand it, the original neutral wire is still there and functioning.I don't know code, but it obviously works and it should provide adequate protection from electrocution."The Equipement Grounding Conductor, IE "the ground" is bonded to the neutral at the service enterance equippment, IE the main panell. where the grounding electrode also connect.The EGC does not normally carry any current so it is at the potential of the ground electrode.All exposed metal that could be accidentially energized by a fault is connected to the EGC which will return the current to the panel if high enoguh the breaker will trip.Even if the current is not enough to trip the breaker it is sized so that the voltage, with respect to the earth, will stay at safe levels.Now eliminate the EGC and depend a ground electrode.There are many different ground electrode systems, but ground rods is one common system.A single ground rod can be use is it test less than 25 ohms, othewise 2, at least 6 ft apart is needed. And then then is no test of the resistance is needed.Now 120 across a 25 ohm resistance will draw slightly more than 4 amps. Not enough to trip a breaker.BUT WELL MORE THAN ENOUGH TO KILL SOME ONE.Improper grounding (equipment grounding conductor) is a very real problem with street lights and light poles in parks.I remember reading about some, one locally, but I can't locate any right now.Nowever, here was a similar type of accident with a in the ground, but electrified.http://www.mikeholt.com/newsletters.php?action=display&letterID=232.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1989/ip891117.html"Improper Grounding — A Potential ProblemImproper grounding is a common shortcoming that we have found exists in our parks, and, in combination with other factors, is a potentially serious one.This particular problem was a contributing factor in the electrocution of a young boy at the Westmont Park District in 1985. This deficiency has also shown up in reports from other park districts and electrical contractors. The "http://gothamist.com/2006/09/19/family_to_sue_d.php"Last week, a Brooklyn teenager died after being electrocuted while climbing a fence at PS 217 in Ditmas Park. Luis Rivera and friends were leaving the school's basketball courts (which had been closed) around 8PM, and when Rivera climbed the fence, he brushed up against a light fixture which was not properly "grounded" and was shocked. ".
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
wow thanks..some good links..
http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1989/ip891117.html
I think made in clear and simple to understand , exactly how our situation, could be potentially dangerous.
You now when I talked to the county inspector, and he said it was not code, but didn't indicate it was dangerous. Well he said nothing about this "touch voltage potential" it was he he assumed that any malfunction inside the pole would be bleed off by the gnd rod there at that pole. I would assume a lot of electricians misunderstand this as well.
You are some sharp guys...appreciate the advice...I'm thinking about printing off a hard copy of that article and taking it down to educate the inspector. You know if you're an electrician , you should just follow all the codes, cause someone a lot smarter than most of us come up with them for a reason. When you start putting in your own interpretation, you might unknowlingly be creating a hazard.
Thanks again
No ... that is why I posted. We do, at the panel, connect our neutral AND ground busses to the wire that goes to the ground rod. That much is true. It has nothing to do with the performance of the system, though. Nor has that ground rod the slightest thing to do with clearing of electrical faults. Both of those functions are totally dependent upon the connection of the utility neutral to the transformer. Proof? Several countries - Norway comes to mind - take pains to ensure that neither the neutrals nor the grounds ever come in contact with the earth. Likewise, every train, plane, ship, and spacecraft operate quite well without a connection to the earth. A ground rod does NOTHING to prevent electrocution. Use of the earth for this purpose is specifically prohibited in the NEC. The use of the earth for this purpose by SOME power companies has resulted in numerous deaths of livestock, swimmers, etc. If one does not understand, or accept these statements ... Mike Holt has several more detailed posts (Grounding vs. Bonding) at his site. http://www.mikeholt.com If one is unwilling to learn these things, one ought to stay away from electricity. Period. You WILL kill someone. I repeat my first post: the hack who made that 'fix' was no electrician- and ought not be pretending to be one.
wow ...that
http://www.mikeholt.com
some good stuff there...got it bookmarked.
"A ground rod does NOTHING to prevent electrocution."I do not understand this statement at all, at least in connection with the situation described. Suppose the hot wire chafes against a sharp metal in the fixture and connects with the metal of the light pole. Now, the entire pole is hot, and if someone touches it, they could potentially be electrocuted, no? However, if the pole was connected to a ground rod, and the resistance to ground was low enough, enough current would flow from the hot wire to the pole and then to the ground rod, and thereby trip the breaker. End of electrocution potential, no? If this is true, didn't the ground rod have SOMETHING to due with preventing electrocution?The risk, of course, is that a rod pounded into the dirt may not have a low enough resistance to ground to trip that breaker, thus leaving the electrocution potential (as has been said earlier). I admit I know nothing about foreign countries or trains, but is this not correct for this country and non-moving objects?
That is what I thought, but hey....did you go to those links that BillHartman gave?
http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/1989/ip891117.html
Explains technically how the situation I explained can be fatal.
And the other articles have documneted that this is an unsafe situation, there have been people killed in the situation, now how can anybody argue with that.
Saying it will only kill in cetain situations, is like saying Russian Roulette will only kill in certain situations ( yes when there is a bullet in the chamber). Not worth the chance.
"The risk, of course, is that a rod pounded into the dirt may not have a low enough resistance to ground to trip that breaker"
Exactly right. And the probability of that being the case is extremely high. So you've answered your own question.
In the scenario you describe, what we want to happen is that (to invent numbers) 10,000 amps flows instantaneously on the copper equipment grounding conductor (because it has almost zero resistance) back to the panel, and the breaker trips immediately. As Bill explained earlier, 5 amps flowing back to the panel thru a grounding electrode doesn't help us a bit. The breaker doesn't trip, the light pole is still at 120v, and sits there waiting to kill someone.
Your next call might be to the HA's attorney / legal counsel. Trying to "avoid additional cost" can be construed as negligence. Negligence will land the HA in all sorts of wonderful fun. Depending upon how the neighborhood Ts & Cs are crafted, that may (will) come back down on the homeowners themselves.Glen