AG Pool wiring and other headaches

[denanbob]

That does help, thanks Matt! However, should I change anything about what we've done or just leave it alone and know it's probably overkill?

[matt4x4]

If you don't connect to the ground rod at the pool, you are STILL connected to the ground rod at the house, so is all yourt BONDED equipment since anything electrical like the motor casing/housing will be grounded allready, you're essentially grounding your bonding, EXCEPT you're doing it through a tiny wire that may not withstand a lightning strike (and that's the route a lightning strike would take).
In my opinion, you're safer with a ground rod or six or ten, like I stated before, anything electrical that goes wrong, your pool is tied to your pump, to your GFCI, to your Electrical Ground (which is also teh house ground for anything metal), so anything goes wron electrically speaking, you're safe, the GFCI will pop.
A scenario of why you'd need this is that if your DH would be mowing the lawn while you're in the pool and he accidentally mows over the pump cord, the cut/live end hits the pool, voila GFCI goes "pop" and you live. Electricity would trip the GFCI since it's wired to do so (whether or not you have a ground stake).

A scenario where the ground rods save you is when all electrical is OK, you're swimming (again! Is that ALL you do???), a rogue lightning stike hits the pool, the ground rods take care of it and you live (again! - what do you have, 9 lives or something??)
Oh, BTW - In this scenario, the GFCI may be fried, but hey, you got to live, so that's not a bad tradeoff.....then again, you may want to verify that statement with DH.

Since your pool is sitting on the ground, the second the ground is wet, you essentially have a ground rod anyways since water conducts electricity.
The reason they have you install RODS is so that there is always good continuity to ground - meaning, the rod penetrates the ground so far that the earth it's in is always wet or damp at minimum meaning it will ALWAYS conduct electricity.

So the question to you is - do you feel lucky?

[prh129]

Normally, you have a ground wire so that if there is a failure, the electricity has a path to ground that it goes to instead of going through you. If you have a ground wire tied to the pool and let's say the electric wire from the pump severed and touched the pool then electricity would flow through the pool to ground and if someone was in the pool then it would seem like they would be electrocuted. Without the ground wire, the pool would go up to the line voltage but no current would theoretically flow so someone in the pool shouldn't be harmed. This matches John T's explanation of the purpose of bonding. However, the bonding wire just sits on the ground so the pool is not totally isolated but I'm guessing the amount of current that can flow to ground is much less through a thinner wire sitting on the ground wire than a fat rod buried in the ground.

In either case if your pool was hit by lightning I think anyone in it would be toast.

If the above is true then I would remove the connections to ground.

Peter

[matt4x4]

If you're in your pool, and the severed cable hits the pool or the motor armature shorts or whatever, you DO NOT FRY, because EVERYTHING is BONDED back to the motor armature in a loop, including the ground post which ends up just becoming an extension of the pool wall or anything else metal that is bonded, it has NOTHING to do with GROUNDING in THIS particular scenario, the only time the rod is beneficial above and beyond being a metal stick in the ground is when lightning strikes....when lightning stikes, you don't need a bond, and the system now works as a lightning ground.
Remember that with or without a ground ROD, you still have a ground that is connected in the the exact same way, the only difference being it is a thin wire that runs back to the house, this wire cannot withstand the current produced by lightning, but is fine for any malfunction related to your equipment.
So, the only reason you're putting in a ground rod is to allow you to ALSO deal with safely dissipating the IMMENSE current produced by lightning which the little wire running back to the house is UNABLE to do for you. In my opinion, it's a pretty good reason to do so.....but hey, you only live once.

If Grounding your pool properly is a safety concern, then pumps and lights should not ship with ground wires, you would not have to run a grounded circuit to your pool, and last but not least you would have to build your pool on top of something like a rubber membrane or pink styrofoam that stretches beyond the reaches of the pool wall because the ground it's built on, the same ground the wall channels sit on is definitely not an insulator.

[denanbob]

You guys are going to kill me...........I think I'm following, but can you just answer this question:

Do we need to change the setup or is it fine? I can't tell if I'm going to die or not from the explanations. ROFL!

[prh129]

Denanbob - I don't have the expertise to tell you what to do here so I won't.

I was thinking about this some more and if the pump is double insulated then I don't believe that the bonding wire connects to the circuit ground back to the panel.

Anyway, if lightning hits an AG pool, it's made of metal and it's sitting on the ground so the lightning has a direct path to ground through the pool so it shouldn't need to flow through the ground wire back to the panel. I don't think a grounding rod would provide any more safety in the case of a lightning strike (or other situation). If it did then why wouldn't the electrical code (article 680) specifically call for it?

Peter

[matt4x4]

I would ground the pool to the rods, reason being, if lightning ever does strike and you do NOT have rods, under certain scenarios, it is not grounded well enough just by sitting on the "ground" (meaning dirt). if the "ground" is not wet enough, lightning will not travel into it, it's the moisture content in the "ground" that allows it to act as a grounding point, the dirt itself does pretty much nothing, the rods ensure that you are always grounding through soil that has moisture content, so essentially they are just an extension of all your pool metal into permanently wet/damp "ground".
Without the rods, If lightning strikes during a dry spell, the path of least resistance would be through the circuit ground wire (the thin one) back to the panel and into the grounding rod located at the house, however, this path would only be available to the lightning for a mili second because that's all it would take to burn up the wire, at that point you would no longer have a path to ground - therefore, to be absolutely safe, I would use the ground rods.

Grounding your pool through ground rods has absolutely NO effect on the bonding aspect of the pool, bonding is a completely different procedure meant for a completely different scenario, but still brings everything back to a ground rod at your house.
Bonding anything metal is done to ensure that if this metal becomes energized, it is safely taken to ground, eliminating any electrical potential within that item. However, bonding is not done for lightning strikes, it is done for electrical malfuntions where the current is much lower and will not cook your #12 wires. Metal things INSIDE your house will likely NEVER get struck by lightning, metal things outside of your house are always at risk, I looked at my Natural Gas tank located outside my house last night, I found a #8 wire leading directly to ground from the tank's body. I looked at my Electrical meter outside my house, another #8 directly to the house ground rod. When I installed my Satellite dish, it was not just recommended, it was specified to ground it within a certain number of feet otherwise the warranty would be null and void.
My pool instructions specified it as well, yes, it's not electrical code, but the pool manufacturer has nothing monetary to gain from this recommendation, yet they still recommend you do it.

BTW - Anything bonded within your house like plumbing, gas lines etc., goes DIRECTLY to the house ground rod through a minimum #8 wire, why would it be such a bad thing to do the same at the pool instead of relying on a thin #12 wire to bring it all the way back to the house just to let the #8 located there bring it to the ground rod?
The code specifies that a ground rod is NOT required, however, that does not mean you cannot install one, codes are MINIMUM giudelines you have to follow, however, like anything, going above and beyond the call of duty is not a bad thing.
I live in Canada, our electrical codes are different, usually our construction codes are stricter that those in the USA, I have not had time to look up our electrical codes on this issue, but this is going to make me do so as soon as i can, I WILL post back with my findings on that.

[denanbob]

My DH just got done sledgehammering 10ft copper rods into the ground at six different points around our pool. I don't even know HOW we would begin to get those out. We searching for how to ground a pool and this is what we found. Now I'm finding out this may not be the case. He also put little copper connectors at the base of each of our posts/pillars that hold the pool up. He then is threading #6 copper wire through each connector and ground all the way around the pool. So it will go connector/ground rod/connector/ground rod, etc................Please tell me we don't have to rip this all out. If anything, is it just overkill?

Matt - so you're saying we're just fine with what we've done even though it's not required by code, right? Thanks sooooooooo much for the great explanations. I appreciate you taking the time to type all that out.