Read about the Grounding and Bonding Requirements for Electrical System in California

Today’s National Electrical Code requires the electrical service panel equipment and the electrical system to be grounded and bonded in order to insure safety to the electrical system and personal. Once our electrician is on site he can determine if your electrical system is grounded and bonded correctly according to the National Electrical Code guidelines.

The electrical service panel should be grounded to either an Ufer rod and/or to a ground rod. Some cities and counties require two ground rods for electrical service panel grounding system. The bonding of the electrical system and equipment are required to be bonded to the main plumbing lines. This is usually done at the electrical service panel and at the hot water heater in most cases. The electrical service panel is bonded to the cold-hot-water lines and gas lines. The reasoning for this is if electricity came in contact with one of these plumbing lines the circuit breaker should trip and not allow the plumbing line to become energized with electricity.

Ungrounded electrical equipment and electrical systems are considered unsafe. If electricity happens to somehow come in contact with a metallic plumbing line, the line would become energized and be considered dangerous and not safe. The grounding and bonding must be brought up to current code standards when replacing the electrical service panel and/or the riser and service conductors in most cases. If your electrical service panel is sufficient and you don’t have grounding and bonding done to today’s National Electrical Code standards, it would be a very wise investment to bring your grounding and bonding up to current code standards just to ensure the safety to the existing electrical system and to personnel.

All of our work is done to the National Electrical Code guidelines in order to ensure you a safe operating electrical system. All work includes a warranty on parts and labor. A licensed electrical contractor should do all electrical work and/or a state certified electrician working for a licensed electrical contractor it’s the law. All of our electricians here at Safe-Way Electric & Solar are state certified electricians. The Contractor State License Board does not allow state certified electricians to do side work even though they are state certified.

In any electrical system, proper bonding and grounding work must be done to ensure its safety. When either process is not done correctly, the piping systems become energized; this can raise the risk of electrocution and lead to fires. Other than metallic piping systems used for filtered water and other metallic systems, most are required to be bonded with an electrical system in the same way that filtered water metallic piping systems are essentially bonded. Several other metallic systems are those used in fuel gas and fuel oil piping, landscape irrigation system piping, swimming pool pump motors, hydro massage tub pump motors, and pneumatic piping just to name a few. There are also metallic components like fences, ladders, or diving boards.

Bonding is usually referred to as the act of electrically tying, in a sense. Electrically conductive systems are not designed or panned to carry a current normally, but when it is bonded to an electrical grounding system, they are permanently joined at the metallic parts. This makes up an electrically conductive path, which makes certain that there will be electrical continuity as well as the ability to conduct any current on metallic parts safely when an electrical system is functioning properly. The equipment grounding conductor or wires do not carry a current, the intention of the equipment grounding conductor is to provide a low impedance ground fault current path from the point of a ground fault on a wiring system to an electrical supply source. This causes the over current protection device to open the current and clear the fault. Electrical systems require the bonding and grounding of the system to be done accurately in order to ensure that it will be safe. Failing to bond the necessary piping systems to the electrical system can potentially lead to fires and electrocution. This is due to the piping systems becoming energized.