Bonding/Grounding gas pipe to cold water?

[Jeff Blake]

I have been trying to find information on this issue but seem to be going in circles. The basic situation is a basement containing a gas steel pipe entering on one end near an electrical service panel, then traveling to the opposite corner of the basement where the gas furnace and water heater are located, as well as where the main cold water supply enters over there.

The situation is that there is a heavy gauge copper wire clamped from the gas pipe to the cold water pipe a few feet above the water tank (where these lines feed the tank below) and I'm trying to figure out if this is proper, improper, required, prohibited etc. (Ontario Canada)

It's been this way all along and when the water tank was replaced earlier this year, the person doing that job didn't make any notice of that bonding or grounding jumper, but when a furnace service tech came to do maintenance he immediately said "That is a hazard and I'm taking it off right now, it could provide a path for electricity down into the gas appliance instead of properly to ground".

That didn't sound right so I tried researching the issue and ended up here asking the question to see if someone can clarify what should or shouldn't be done in this situation...I know codes may vary but if it's a cold hard fact that it's a hazard, that should be consistent across codes I expect (or hope)?

[gkay]

Hope this works for you.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=...7hnoWMvQ&pli=1

[Stephen W. Stanczyk]

Should have added the hot water line in the bonding as well.

[Jeff Blake]

Originally Posted by gkay

Hope this works for you.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=...7hnoWMvQ&pli=1

That picture shows exactly what I was talking about which the gas guy wanted to remove from my pipes. So it appears to be ok after all. One thing I did notice though, with that wire removed from the pipes I still had continuity between them so I'm assuming it was bonded through the AC ground in each appliance. Does anyone know if that would be a sufficient or deficient bonding method if the pipe to pipe bond wasn't in place?


Also I see the date on that bulletin is from 2002 so I did a search and found reference to bulletin 10-14-4 dated May 09 in this index:
http://www.esasafe.com/pdf/bulletin_index.pdf

But of course I don't know where to locate the actual bulletin...I wonder if the rules have changed on this topic?