What is the purpose of this grey pipe that runs down to the ground? There is nothing inside it, and it is open to the groundat the bottom. Is it a drain in case water gets in the box?

Unlikely to be a drain. The fitting creates a lip anyway, so any water would pool around it, but not going to be an issue in an outdoor rated panel. FWIW, drainage features depends on NEMA rating of the enclosure.

What is it? Depends on what the box is. Most likely a spare for some outdoor load, like outdoor lighting or sprinkler system, or could have been for a ground cable down to the ground rod.

BenTheGoodAg said:

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Unlikely to be a drain. The fitting creates a lip anyway, so any water would pool around it, but not going to be an issue in an outdoor rated panel. FWIW, drainage requirements depends on NEMA rating of the enclosure.

What is it? Depends on what the box is. Most likely a spare for some outdoor load, like outdoor lighting or sprinkler system, or could have been for a ground cable down to the ground rod.

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My next though was it was for a ground wire, but is this not my ground? Since there's nothing in this pipe it had me worried.

Edit: The box in the OP is the main service breaker panel to the whole house.

That is not your ground. I'm not sure what that is, though. Can't make out the details on the box.

It has the ground symbol on it and says intersystem bonding termination. I also have this wire coming out of the wall and terminating on my main gas line, and the main gas line then runs into the ground.

That NSi box is there to bond your above-ground metal gas piping system to the system ground in the panel. The terminology here of "bonding" and "grounding" often are used interchangeably, but mean different things. This is installed for the safety of the gas piping system so it has a reference & path to ground if it were energized. It is not there to allow the piping system to act as the grounding electrode for your distribution panel (this is prohibited).

You should be able to find a ground rod somewhere nearby, and it will have a ground cable that goes to the main panel or to the electric meter. It might look something like this:

This is the full picture of everything at my electric service boxes. I don't see anything like that.

Did you add fill dirt? Might have buried the ground rod.

I didn't add any dirt. I don't even see a wire from the main box that looks like a ground wire other than the one going to the bonding terminal.

I talked to the electrical company that installed everything, and they said my electric provider doesn't approve any meter unless a ground rod is there, but I'm really not seeing it anywhere.

Well, there's a chance that the empty conduit was meant to connect a ground rod to the panel (cable called the Grounding Electrode Conductor). But there could be other ways this was done - for example, you could use a horizontal grounding rod (often used in areas with shallow bedrock). You don't want multiple GECs.

If you are comfortable opening the panel, there will be a ground busbar in the panel that has several ground wires connected to it. Most of them will be small, and go directly with their Hot/Neutral to the loads they serve. But if there's one that's larger, and takes a different path, that could be the GEC. If this is a 200A panel, it would probably be a #4 AWG cable.

I'm not sure I totally follow. Are you saying that I wouldn't see the wire exiting the main box and a ground rod going into the ground outside somewhere if it was a horizontal style rod? I do live in an area that has solid rock not too far down.

The Grounding Electrode Conductor does not always take the same path out of the distribution panel. It's possible that it could go inside the structure and down through the slab. You might find this cable if you open the panel. Likewise, different soils may require different grounding electrode types. We can't know because every situation is different.

That said, it would be pretty typical to go directly from an outdoor panel to a grounding rod below, so your spider-sense isn't off base here.

And just because the electric company said they did it that way doesn't mean they did it that way, unfortunately.

Is it possible the rod is connected to that bonding terminal and going through the slab?

My home isn't showing any symptoms that it's not grounded that I can tell, but it is bothering me that I can't confirm it by visual inspection. I have the builder's electrician coming out in a few days to look at it, so hopefully I can get confirmation then.

I wouldn't think so. Maybe they intended that, but it's not to code. The cable doesn't look big enough to me and it's not green. It'd be easy to take the cover off and see how many and what kind of conductors are terminated there.

If they say a ground rod is required, I think you're on the right path to assume you should have a vertical ground rod and have them look and confirm otherwise. A rod needs to be close to this panel and should be easy to find if this was recent work.

Here is pic from the final inspection report. Not good quality, but can you tell anything about the grounding?

I can't make out enough of the details.

I will say, the incoming cables/panel is smaller than I expected which means the GEC doesn't need to be as big as I thought. I also took some time to read up on the code, and I think I'm mistaken that a GEC is required to be green (edit - on my phone this originally looked like black insulation. I can see it's bare now). So it's possible that the NSi box connects to some kind of ground rod and it could meet code.

All that said, I think it's worth the ask.

If you follow the bare wire out of the ISBT, it should take you back to your GEC. That box is typically there for outside services (gas, cable, internet) to bond to back the ground.

GEC can be bare.

That pipe is begging to have the jumper to the ground rod. If you have shallow rock, chance they went to a Ufer in the slab. Or said F it it's Friday and let it ride.

If it was an UFER, should they have left an access panel to see the ground connection to the rebar? I didn't see anything like that inside or outside the house near the main panel.

I have this pic below of what the internals of the wall looks like on the other side of the main panel. You can see a bare wire going to the left which is the one for the gas pipe bonding. There is another bare wire going to the right which I'd assume could be the GEC to an UFER, but I can't tell what it's connecting to after increasing the exposure and zooming in.

So I did some investigating of other houses in my neighborhood that are under construction. Those houses appear to have a thick bare wire running into the ground through that grey pipe on the bottom of the main panel. Seems like that should be the ground wire which I don't have. So it's possible that this whole time my home has only had a ground via the exposed gas pipe?

Thunderstruck xx said:

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So it's possible that this whole time my home has only had a ground via the exposed gas pipe?

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It's really unlikely that you're grounded by your gas pipe. It's SOP to use a dielectric fitting between the meter and above-ground pipe to electrically isolate them. If the GEC is missing, there are likely other features that provide some reference grounding effect for your house in normal circumstances (capacitive grounding, grounding at the transformer, etc.).

Thunderstruck xx said:

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So I did some investigating of other houses in my neighborhood that are under construction. Those houses appear to have a thick bare wire running into the ground through that grey pipe on the bottom of the main panel. Seems like that should be the ground wire which I don't have.

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It could mean that. But it's not an absolute - different contractor, different day, etc. The other wire above looks like it might could go to an Ufer ground. Still think you're on the right track to ask them about it at this point.

I had the same thought about maybe different contractors, but the fact that I can't physically see the ufer ground connection anywhere make me nervous. If I can't get confirmation that I have an ufer ground, would there be any harm in having both an ufer as well as a ground rod?

I think practically it's not an issue, especially in this application. But you might get some different opinions on having multiple GECs from a code perspective. I'd never do it in an industrial facility with sensitive control systems and long cable runs, and I take the continuous run section of the code to mean you shouldn't to limit ground loops. But in this case, I high doubt that it matters. Personally, I'm open to other opinions on that.

Definitely, I will get other opinions. I'm checking on this with the builder's electrician in a couple of days.

Your comment about capacitive grounding gave me a thought. What if they messed up the UFER such that it's not a strong ground. I have this concrete efflorescence around my whole house that I posted about in another thread. I wonder if there's a charge on my slab causing it to attract water and cause efflorescence.

https://texags.com/forums/61/topics/3418228/

You may want to contact the building inspection department and ask to see the inspection report for electrical. The inspector should have documented how the ground was done. I agree that the tubing shown was intended to have a ground wire. Code requires the gec to be protected.

That's a good idea. I assume this would be the city inspector for the city where my home was built?

No way. I don't know what that is, but it's not a charge issue.

Thunderstruck xx said:

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would there be any harm in having both an ufer as well as a ground rod?

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Not as long as they are both bonded to your grounding electrode system, i.e. tied together or tied to the same point.

Are you in a typical production builder neighborhood or one off custom homes? In a typical neighborhood the builder isn't likely to use different subs, which means they generally build them all the same. A ufer was one thought but if the other houses have the same downward pipe and rod, I'd expect yours would as well. Dig around the dirt below a bit and see if you find a rod.

It's a production builder. As far as I know they haven't switched electrical contractors. I dug around under the pipe, and there's a hole under the sod there that needs to be filled in right next to the foundation, but no rod that I can see. Maybe they pre-drilled a hole and didn't put the rod in there?

I guess my only ground at the moment might only be the one at the transformer which would be bad if the distribution line went down there.

I got the panel open for a better pic. In talking to one of my neighbors, he confirmed that I should have had a ground rod because my electric service provider requires one before a meter will be installed. No idea how I got a meter! We saw the words "bonded at foundation" written in sharpie on the inside of the panel door, so that at least tells me that I have an UFER. However, you can see in the pic below that there are no ground wires running outside to a ground rod. Also, they didn't ground the metal tube that runs to the meter box.

Bare copper wire touching the bottom of the can in between the two conduits - is that just laying there or attached to anything? There's a little piece of schmutz or foam or something in front of it.

That wire exits the bottom and connects at this bonding terminal.



I'm pretty sure there is an UFER, but I'll double check with the electrician. My neighbor said his house has both an UFER and the ground rod.

Side question as someone who is generally terrified of electric work since I had a previous house fire...if I hit that ground wire with my weedeater or accidentally touch it when I'm gardening, will anything happen?