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The water pipe ground connection looks much better in the above “After” photo.
The second arrow from the right in the above photo points to the old disconnected water service pipe. Though it is disconnected in the house, I figured some copper pipe might still be buried in the earth that can be used as supplemental ground. So, I included it in my bonding.
I always carry some emery cloth in my tool sack for sanding water pipes to make a clean, low-resistance ground connection.
In the above photo, the water pipe has been sanded clean, and a new water pipe ground clamp has been attached. A #4 copper wire with green insulation was used as a bonding jumper for the water meter.
Above is how a water meter should be jumped with a ground bonding jumper. #6 copper wire is sufficient, but I used #4 in the picture. The purpose of the water meter bonding jumper is to maintain grounding continuity on the water pipes.
The cable TV demarcation point is now properly grounded to protect from lightning strikes. The new #10 green, copper, ground bonding conductor was brought into the house via a new drilled hole.
The new #10 green copper ground bonding conductor is connected to the ground terminal screw inside of the main telephone demarcation box for the house. I installed the new wire through the existing phone wire tube to avoid another hole in the wall.
The photo above shows how I grounded the TV and telephone ground bonding wires to the grounding electrode conductor connected to the water main pipe by clamping them together.
Alternatively, for grounding the TV and telephone, I could have installed an Intersystem Bonding Termination as Article 250.94 of the National Electrical Code required. All of the ground wires would then terminate together there.
WATER HEATER BONDING
In addition to the other bonding and grounding tv and telephone, I also bonded the interior metal piping, including the cold water pipe, to the hot water pipe and the gas pipe, as required in article 250.104 (A) and (B) of the National Electrical Code.
It does not matter what type of water heater you have. They all must have the hot and cold water pipes bonded together.
If this house contained a hot water baseboard heating system with metal pipes, those would also have to be bonded to the cold water pipe. It is very convenient to bond all three pipes at the water heater, which are accessible to the inspector.
When grounding TV and telephone, note that some areas of the country may not permit the gas pipe to be bonded. You should check with your local building department.
This is something to be mindful of when working on the grounding electrode system. I have seen plumbers working in older homes replace old pipes with plastic pipes. And they do it piecemeal because the owner does not want to re-plumb the entire house.
The grounding continuity is lost when the plastic pipe is inserted into an existing plumbing system. The copper pipe at the one end is no longer grounded.
This can be alleviated by installing #6 copper bonding jumpers from the grounded copper pipe to the un-grounded copper pipe.
In addition to grounding TVs and telephones, a surge protector will help prevent lightning damage. Read my post about installing a whole-house surge protection device.
For more information on additional steps that can be taken to improve lightning protection, grounding cable and satellite TV, and your telephone service, please read NFPA 780.
You might be interested in reading some of my other posts on grounding and bonding.
The NFPA has a good article about the components of the Grounding Electrode System.
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