A/C grounding and wiring mess..

[kenny martin]

Just did a 9000 sq. ft. home yesterday and was wondering about grounding A/C to water line in crawlspace mid-line?? Shouldn't it be grounded to stake outside , unit is app. 100' from main panels and main water entry. Also trough coming in feeds 6 200 amp panels and one panel was 60" to the bottom and 84" to the top, I know this is way too high but it is above the trough which is high off the ground, no subs had grounds and neutrals separated and wiring was a mess overall, do you generalize and say have licensed electrcian evaluate and correct as needed or do you guys go in detail?? Thanks for input.. KDM

[kenny martin]

A.D.
Was that first "subtle" then "clarity" or vice versa?? :p

[Jim Port]

Kenny, it sounds like this place has multiple issues. For your future reference, items are not grounded by driving ground rods into the ground.

The service would be where all the grounding takes place. Equipment grounding conductors should be run with the circuit conductors and terminate on the proper buss in the panel.

BTW, how old was this place? Given your description of the service, it does not appear to be any reason for things to be so messed up. This all sounds very new so I don't see why all the screwups.

[kenny martin]

Jim,

Home is 29 yrs old, it was bought by a well known business owner who was loaded, was because he died last year, he did multiple upgrades in the home and additions including a $260,000 kitchen, seems that most of his work was performed by drinking buddies? I took almost 200 pics for the report, house was still a bargain at $790,000 though and the buyer is aware of the need for major repairs overall, electric was just one of many issues..

[James Duffin]

Just did a 9000 sq. ft. home yesterday and was wondering about grounding A/C to water line in crawlspace mid-line?? Shouldn't it be grounded to stake outside , unit is app. 100' from main panels and main water entry. Also trough coming in feeds 6 200 amp panels and one panel was 60" to the bottom and 84" to the top, I know this is way too high but it is above the trough which is high off the ground, no subs had grounds and neutrals separated and wiring was a mess overall, do you generalize and say have licensed electrician evaluate and correct as needed or do you guys go in detail?? Thanks for input.. KDM

If I find multiple problems with any system I'll give several examples of what I found (with pictures) and say that the entire system needs to be evaluated and repaired by a licensed contractor. If there is that much wrong they need a more through evaluation that I can do in three hours or so. The local code inspectors stop inspecting a job after they find three things wrong and tell the contractor to give them a call when they are "really' ready for the inspection. That is a good policy I think for a home inspector to follow. If you find a mess report it as such.