electrical question, grounding and bonding

[ChewBiscuit]

I hadn't really thought much of it since I bought this house earlier this year, but I just wonder if something is wrong with how my pump is grounded and / or bonded.

I have an in-ground pool with a liner.

The equipment is 20 to 30 feet away.

The pump has a grounding wire attached to it that just goes into the ground between a couple patio bricks.

And no bonding wire attached from it to anything else. There's a bonding lug on my heater, but nothing connected.

I tried searching around the forum and a lot of posts mentioned the grounding wire going back to the panel somehow. (sorry, I'm electrically illiterate) And of course, everything should be bonded, right?

I also have a light in the pool; the switch for it has a GFCI outlet next to it, but it doesn't appear to be even testable. I push the trip or the reset button and nothing seems to happen. Should I be concerned there?

I've been swimming all summer with no incidents, but if anything sounds off, of course I'm just going to search for a pool expert electrician and get an inspection just to make sure things are up to snuff.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

 

[JohnT]

The wire should go to the buried pool walls and the rebar or mesh in the concrete decking. No easy way to verify that they are wired. The wire doesn't go to the panel at all. It isn't a ground. In Canada, the wire should be attached to a ground rod.

Your heater should be connected to this wire as well.

 

[ps0303]

Bonding usually refers to a wire that is attached to your pool enclosure, if you have one, and then to all of the equipment without any breaks along the way. If you do not have an enclosure, then somewhere along the build a wire should have been attached to the pool framing and extended to your equipment. What this is opposed to do is prevent electrolysis. Now a grounding rod can also be installed and then all of your equipment then grounded to it.

When you say the wire goes under under the bricks and into the ground, I would hope it either attaches to the pool framing or a grounding rod. How to tell? Well unless you can uncover the rod, should be practically sticking out of the ground, you have no way of knowing where it really attaches. Unless of course someone just tucked it into the dirt and then it goes nowhere.

 

[peterdaly]

I'm no expert in this by far, but I believe my pool, installed and inspected this year in NY State, does not have a grounding rod attached to the bonding wire. I'm sure other people here can speak with authority on this matter.

The electrician did not bond my AutoPilot bonding lug, which I had him come back to do, but the inspector never even gave that a look. As best I can tell, my inspector checked that the ladders, hand rails, and pump were all wired together and attached to the re-bar before the concrete was poured. The key things are all now hidden under concrete, but were subject to inspection as required by the pool permit prior to the pour.

 

[linen]

I'm no expert in this by far, but I believe my pool, installed and inspected this year in NY State, does not have a grounding rod attached to the bonding wire. I'm sure other people here can speak with authority on this matter.

In the US, no grounding rod attached to the bonding network is required. As a side note, in Canada it is required.

 

[gtemkin]

Bonding usually refers to a wire that is attached to your pool enclosure, if you have one, and then to all of the equipment without any breaks along the way. If you do not have an enclosure, then somewhere along the build a wire should have been attached to the pool framing and extended to your equipment. What this is opposed to do is prevent electrolysis. Now a grounding rod can also be installed and then all of your equipment then grounded to it.

I may have read this wrong but it seems to say, Bonding is intended to prevent electrolysis [galvanic corrosion?].

If that's what it says, that's incorrect. The primary purpose of bonding is to bring all points on conductive objects (including pool deck concrete) to within a safe voltage differential. That low differential will prevent a shock of any consequence.

In some cases, bonding can cause greater galvanic corrosion, in some cases less, but those are secondary effects of bonding and not it's primary purpose. It's primary purpose is safety.