What were they thinking?

[Vince Santos]

Unfortunately I did not take any photos of this setup.

Yesterday while performing an inspection I noted the presence of a ground rod at the exterior. When I made my way to the basement and began my inspection on the main service equipment I noticed there was no ground wire attached. However I did see a ground connected the the whole house plumbing just a couple feet away from the panel.

It appeared as though someone attached the ground wire to the plumbing, ran it outside, then attached it directly to the ground rod. They even ran a jumper around the meter.

[Patrick Bolliger]

We use cold water supply piping for GEC's in Chicago all the time. Sounds acceptable.. Also I have seen both a ground rod and water piping grounding in Chicago.

[Sean Fogarty]

Thats funny. I saw the same thing last week. New isolated ground panel, and no ground wires on the grounding bar. I looked and realized not ground at all. I went outside and found the same thing. Here in TN they want 2. One on the pipe and one in the dirt. My house was also riddled with problems. Two dumb f@*ks on a sat.

[Vince Santos]

Originally Posted by pbolliger

We use cold water supply piping for GEC's in Chicago all the time. Sounds acceptable.. Also I have seen both a ground rod and water piping grounding in Chicago.

I don't have a problem with that, often times there is a ground at the exterior (rod) and the interior (water main), but unless your service equipment is connected to that ground it's pointless.