Mickey Baker wrote:
> Fred,
>
> By the way, those surge suppression strips and GFCI outlets are
> useless on ungrounded circuits.
GFCI doesn't need a ground (otherwise, why would they bother putting
them on hairdryer cords).. They work by sensing the difference in
current between the two power wires by running them both through a
transformer core. If the two currents aren't exactly opposite, the
breaker trips.
> As far as hiring an electrician and pulling a permit, use your own judgement
> and make your own decision as to whether or not you can do the work safely.
> A permit doesn't make work safe. Remember that even experienced, licensed,
> good electricians make mistakes - that's the reason for inspections.
In most localities, permit and hiring electrician are separable. It's
legal in most places to do electrical work on your own residential
property. They'll want to inspect, of course (and charge for the permit
too.) If you're planning on selling the house in the future, and the
work is going to be obvious (e.g. you've only got 3 prong plugs in one
room of the house), then it's best to bite the bullet and do the permit
now, rather than when you sell.
>
> #12 isn't big enough to ground your mast or to bond to your house electrical
> system to expect reasonable lightning protection. Pounding an 8' ground rod
> into the ground and bonding with #6 or larger is recommended as a minimum.
Grounding is a bit more complex than just hammering in a rod. In many
areas, a single ground rod would not comply with the code, and in any
case, if you DO have a rod, 8 feet of it have to be "in the soil". More
important is that all the grounds are bonded together. #6 is the
required size for bonding two grounds for most situations, but you need
to look at the relevant sections of Art 250 of the NEC to get the
details. While the latest NEC isn't online, most of the grounding
provisions are, in one place or another. Carl Malamud's
publicresource.org website has the 2007 California code, which contains
most of the 2005 NEC http://public.resource.org/bsc.ca.gov/index.html
>
> Good luck. Make safe choices - you might be making decisions for people you
> don't know who will be living in the house in years to come.
Very true.. whatever you do, do it in a way that is conventional.
Documents get misplaced, and you don't want some poor soul sitting there
20 years from now going "what in the world did they do here?"
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