- Location
- Lockport, IL
- Occupation
- Retired Electrical Engineer
When I moved into the 60+ year old house I am renting, there was no cable TV and only a single pair of conductors for phone service. The phone line ran underground from the street (100 feet in front of the house), came out of the dirt next to the house, and entered the house via a hole drilled in the brick. It runs entirely inside walls from that point. There was no interface box, and no grounding electrode.
The electric service runs underground from the street to a shed (100 feet in back of the house and to the side), and from there underground to the house distribution panel. There is a grounding electrode at the shed. Near the shed, there is a large concrete pad where a workshop used to be. I have no idea why the service was run to the shed, and not to the house.
In order to get cable service, I dug a trench from the street to the house, and buried two cables (given to me by the cable company and by the phone company). The cable company asked for a ground rod near their point of entry into the house, and I installed one. Later, the phone company installed a new interface box (near the new cable box), connected the new phone cable, and connected their equipment to the same ground rod.
Now I have a ground rod shared by the cable and phone systems, but the ground for the electric service is 150 feet away. If there is a bond between any gas pipe, any water pipe, and the ground rod at the service point, it is not in plain sight.
QUESTIONS:
(1) Should I view the house panel as being a sub-fed panel, with the service point being at the remote shed? Does this still require a grounding electrode at the house? Should I consider the house to be a remote building?
(2) Do I need to bond the ground rod that I installed for use by the cable and phone equipment to a water pipe, a gas pipe, or to some other point?
Please note that I plan to present this issue to the owner for any corrective action. I?m an engineer, not an electrician, and I consider this type of work to be beyond my skill set.
The electric service runs underground from the street to a shed (100 feet in back of the house and to the side), and from there underground to the house distribution panel. There is a grounding electrode at the shed. Near the shed, there is a large concrete pad where a workshop used to be. I have no idea why the service was run to the shed, and not to the house.
In order to get cable service, I dug a trench from the street to the house, and buried two cables (given to me by the cable company and by the phone company). The cable company asked for a ground rod near their point of entry into the house, and I installed one. Later, the phone company installed a new interface box (near the new cable box), connected the new phone cable, and connected their equipment to the same ground rod.
Now I have a ground rod shared by the cable and phone systems, but the ground for the electric service is 150 feet away. If there is a bond between any gas pipe, any water pipe, and the ground rod at the service point, it is not in plain sight.
QUESTIONS:
(1) Should I view the house panel as being a sub-fed panel, with the service point being at the remote shed? Does this still require a grounding electrode at the house? Should I consider the house to be a remote building?
(2) Do I need to bond the ground rod that I installed for use by the cable and phone equipment to a water pipe, a gas pipe, or to some other point?
Please note that I plan to present this issue to the owner for any corrective action. I?m an engineer, not an electrician, and I consider this type of work to be beyond my skill set.