Your service panel s ground wire prevents a line fault from becoming a shocking experience.
Grounding electrical panel.
By shunting excess line voltage back to the panel s neutral pole the ground current forces the circuit breaker to trip.
In standard sheathed nm cable this bare copper wire is included along with the insulated conducting wires inside the cable.
The wires that bond your metal piping are preventative and they only become important in the unlikely event that an electrical conductor energizes the pipe.
The grounding wire that runs from your electrical panel to grounding electrode helps even out voltage increases that often occur because of lightning and other causes.
They work hand in hand in order to make it safe.
The connection is often unreliable.
Alternatively you might consider connecting the ground terminal to a water pipe by means of an exposed ground wire.
The tripped breaker shuts off the circuit s current preventing a potentially dangerous situation.
The grounding pathway is generally formed by a system of bare copper wires that connect to every device and every metal electrical box in your home.
Which scenario is recommended.
Because the panel must be connected to the.
Distance from the electrical panel nec article 250 does not specify a minimum or maximum distance between the main electrical panel and the ground rod.
This is a brief walk through of a simple grounding and bonding system and what happens with the flow of current in normal operation and in a ground fault c.
When this happens you must bring an appropriately sized equipment grounding conductor over with the circuit to the subpanel you must not have a neutral to ground bond in the panel and the grounding electrodes are optional although highly recommended.
Two problems make the safety of these approaches questionable.