IT conduit bonding

[ongmark]

Does the raceway (such as EMT) that carries the IT cable (such as CAT5e)need/require to be grounded/bonded?

If so, would it require a continuios ground in the raceyway or could the ends be bonded?

 

[bennie]

Re: IT conduit bonding

Ground fault current is not an issue. The metal conduit is acting as a shield. The shield should be connected to ground for draining static charges.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Re: IT conduit bonding

The IT wiring is an Article 800 installation. 800.48 requires that any Chapter 3 wiring methods used for this wiring be installed per the appropriate Chapter 3 Article. The Chapter 3 raceway articles do not require that the raceways be grounded. The requirement that raceways be grounded is in Article 250, and since Chapter 8 is a stand alone article, these raceways are not required by the code to be grounded. There may be design issues, as Bennie stated, that would require this raceway to be grounded, but not a code requirement.
Don

 

[bennie]

Re: IT conduit bonding

The conduit should not be connected to ground at each end. This could possibly create a ground loop from a non-related power circuit.

 

[ron]

Re: IT conduit bonding

Bond at one end, and isolate at the other.

 

[bennie]

Re: IT conduit bonding

Very good point ron.

Do you agree that the conduit should be isolated from any other grounded surface or object?

 

[dereckbc]

Re: IT conduit bonding

Ron & Bennie, Are you are talking about using a ground window with isolated single point grounding? The only place I see this used is in telephone switching centers. And it is limited to the switch area only due to the extrodinary high installation and maintenance cost. Otherwise we install everything in the integrated ground plane.

[ April 03, 2003, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: dereckbc ]