I often see posts referring to "ungrounded" electrical systems. This almost always is from someone that has minimal education in electricity and is referring to an older residential installation that does not have equipment grounding conductors or "grounded" receptacles. What REALLY bothers me is that it is extremely rare for any of the professionals to educate them by explaining that ALL residential electrical systems are "grounded" but that grounding is entirely different than EQUIPMENT grounding which uses the third wire and "ground" connection via a three-prong plug/receptacle.


The other thing that gets me fired up, and this is being addressed by more of the professionals, is the designation of voltages as 110 and 220. These voltages have not been seen for about fifty years except for people living way out in the sticks or serviced by significantly under sized utility transformers. Nominal voltages today are 120 and 240 and generally will be a couple of volts above those numbers rather than lower. Yet the old standard still is common among the populace. Of course it doesn't help when the manufacturers still use the old standard in advertising even though the nameplates of equipment have the higher numbers.


So let us all start using the term "equipment grounding conductor" rather than just "ground" when that is what we mean. Let's also use the proper voltage designations as well. Education is not a bad thing.

 

WOW! made if it was called "BOND WIRE" it would clear up some of the confusion,that's really what it is doing, bonding everything to ground.

 

Maybe if you read Article 100 Definitions you would see my point. Bonding; Bonding Jumper; Bonding Jumper, Equipment and Bonding Jumper, Main all have specific definitions as do Ground; Grounded; Grounded, Effectively; Grounded Conductor; Grounding Conductor, Equipment and Grounding Electrode Conductor.

Grounding Conductor, Equipment (equipment grounding conductor) is NOT the same as "BOND WIRE".

 

How about getting a sticky added to this forum with common and not so common terms? Include hot, ungrounded, neutral, travelers, switch loop, main disconnect, etc.

 

Wow, what timing. I had just finished some circuit changes on a Ground Detect Circuit. It's purpose is to detect if either side of 125V dc mains is grounded. They are actually isolated from earth.
But, alas, not residential. It's for a 1.5GWatt gen site.

For residential. To your point, every AC system is grounded THOUSANDS of times from home to gen site.

 

Sorry I don't want to type that much.
Everybody knows what is being discussed when terms such as 110 or grounds come up.

I grew up in Ohio and have to stop myself everyday from using terms such as outlet, 220, 110.
In Ohio we also called a bell pepper a mango, go figure.

 

According to informational Note number 1 they perform the same function.

“Informational Note No. 1: It is recognized that the equipment grounding conductor also performs bonding.”

Excerpt From: National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). “NFPA 70®, National Electrical Code® (NEC®), 2014 Edition.” NFPA. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/elMFQ.l

 

Geochurci I think that logic is faulty. “X” implies “Y” (X-->Y) does not mean that “Y” implies “X” (“Y”-->“X”).

That is, Equipment Grounding Conductor (“X”) implies Bonding (“Y”), does not mean Bonding (“Y”) implies Equipment Grounding Conductor (“X”).

It seems to me that –

-does not really say that Equipment Grounding Conductor and Bonding are the same thing.

But I could be wrong, it happens once in a very great while …lol !