Overheard an electrician say something that stuck with me about grounding

I was at a supply house in Nashville last Tuesday picking up a spool of RG6 when this old electrician told his apprentice, 'Ground is not a trash can.' He meant you can't just dump noise onto a ground rod and expect it to disappear. It made me think about how many service calls I do where the real issue is a bad bond somewhere else on the property. Has anyone else noticed more problems with cable signal when houses have newer plastic water lines that kill the old grounding path?

3 comments

3 Comments

hannah_perry1mo ago

Man, that electrician nailed it. People really treat ground like some kind of magic drain and it drives me nuts. I see it all the time where someone slaps a ground rod in and thinks their problems are solved, but they never check if the bond to the water pipe or rebar is even still intact. That plastic water line thing is a huge deal, I've had customers with brand new PEX everywhere and suddenly their cable signal goes to crap and nobody can figure out why. The old copper pipes gave everything a solid reference point, and when you take that away, all the stray voltage and noise just floats around looking for a path. It's like having a sink with no drain pipe, the water has nowhere to go but all over your floor.

noahmartin1mo ago

Yeah the "old copper pipes gave everything a solid reference point" part is spot on. People don't realize they replaced a giant grounding grid with nothing.

kellyjones1mo ago

Thank @hannah_perry for that helpful point, but ground rods do actually dissipate current pretty well if they're installed correctly.