Attached Garage, No sub panel, seperate grounding rod

danocars

I am replacing the cable run that feeds my garage outlets. It is fed from the basement ceiling through the joist into the garage. In the house the old wiring connected to a circuit in the basement room closest to the garage. The cable was a 12/2 no ground. In the garage it connects in a splice box where the circuit continues to the garage outlets. That splice box has a seperate copper wire running down to garage wall, passes to the exterior of the garage and attaches to a grounding rod.

Hope that makes sense so far. Now my question:

Should I just run new 12/2 no ground cable?
or
Run 12/2 w/ ground and tie into the rest of the circuit at the splice box as it was before except in addition to the previous connections, also connect the ground from the 12/2 cable to the existing garage grounding system.
or
Run 12/2 w/ ground and tie in at the splice box but disconnect the seperate grounding rod from the circuit completely?
or
something completely different.

thanks

Scuba_Dave

I'd run 12-3 with ground for 2 circuits
You need a ground wire no matter what now

danocars

assuming a run of 12/3, how about the rod that was serving the garage: leave it connected in the circuit or omit it?

brric

What Dave said. That ground rod is totally useless unless it is connected to the house grounding electrode system.

danocars

I'll phrase my remaing question a different way.

The grounding rod is no longer needed and can thus be disconnected. Correct?
(since its purpose is now being served by the ground in the cable running from the house into the garage.)

danocars

I should probably clarify that the house is is wired with equipment grounding so the new cable will tie into a circuit leading back to the existing grounding system at the service panel.

joed

Only one ground point is permitted per structure.
YES you must remove the ground rod at the garage.

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