I inspected this in a Greenwich, Connecticut home today. The waterline was copper, but it was coming through what appeared to be an older steel pipe in the wall and sealed around the edges. Has anybody seen this before? My guess is that instead of cutting a new hole in the foundation for the copper pipe, they just threaded it through the old steel line embedded in the wall (I scraped The paint off and it was not Lead.).
Then I started thinking about the ground for the electric system attached to the steel pipe. If whoever installed the new copper line cut the steel pipe at both sides of the foundation, That doesn’t leave much to provide a quality ground for the electric.
I’m with Brian on this one. As there is no steel to copper fitting. I would just recommend that the grounding clamp be moved onto the copper water line. And possibly a ground rod be installed outside. Also was the water meter at the curb? If so what pipe material was there? Was it copper or steel?
Yeah, water pipe grounding is one of the rare instances where two trades are so reliant on one another. From what I’ve seen over the years, plumbers are not electricians and often don’t understand the ramifications of what they are doing buy replacing a water line. 99% of the time these days it’s plastic which is a whole can of worms. I’ve found most experienced plumbers know to do it right but “Chuck in a Truck,” handyman usually doesn’t.
I’m with Brian, a protective sleeve. However, you should mention that galvanic corrosion will degrade the copper supply line with future leakage developing.
The meter was right above on the copper pipe indoors. There looked to be a conduit heading into the ground outside of the foundation. Assuming a gound but one never knows unless you dig it up.
Hey… thanks for piping in. I wasn’t too concerned about the “quart of paint” because it was painted after the clamp was applied and there were no signs of rust or corrosion, so I believe he contact to be solid still. If it was a fresh brass clamp on a painted pipe, then maybe a different story.
Your original assumption is probably correct. The water line was replaced at some point with copper line and they merely threaded it through the old pipe. The reason this seems like the truth to me is simply that the electrical bond is made to the “old” water pipe (the steel pipe). Had it been installed as a protective sleeve the electrical ground would have been to the copper (or by the time copper line was being used (as opposed to pipe) the ground would have been driven ground rods.
That electrical connection, by the way, no longer provides a sufficient ground.
Thanks for the reminder. I dug pretty hard at it with my screwdriver to get the paint off. I’m pretty sure it’s steel because lead is a terrible conductor and I would hope they wouldn’t have grounded the electric system on a lead water line.
Regardless, the electric should be grounded on the copper, which was my recommendation.
Looks like they threaded the copper through an old galvanized steel pipe.
The copper is not plumbed to the galvanized pipe.
You sure that is not an equipment bond?
Look at the AWG under the insulator jacket. It is minuscule.
Grounding. Unable to observed.
Recommend a licensed electrician locate the ground.
