water meter ground wire jumper not needed?

windowguy · 07-19-2009, 05:55 PM

When my house was 100 Amp service there was a large black ground wire that jumped to the front and rear of the water meter. I understand that as common practice, something about grounding to the water main.

A couple of years ago i had 200 amp service added and a ground ROD was driven into my front yard, then the black wire went down into the basement and it is connected to the front (inlet side) of the water meter but i just noticed that the "jumper" to the rear (outlet side) of the water meter is now disconnected. Its just hanging there in the air.

Did he leave that jumper off on pupose? Did he forget to reattach the jumper? Or do you not need a jumper now that i have a big rod buried in the ground now? I'm not sure how the rod concept works, but i think i still need the jumper, no?

If this confuses anybody i will add a picture.

kbsparky · 07-19-2009, 06:00 PM

Do you have metal piping for your water? Or does it change to plastic once it has left the meter?

windowguy · 07-19-2009, 06:18 PM

its copper the whole way.. here's a picture.. the black wire on the bottom left goes to the grounding rod outside. you can see it attaches to the 'inlet' side of the water meter.. then there's the black wire just hanging in the air that you see has a silver metal connector on the topside of the water meter, but its not connected. I feel so stupid i can't say if that was ever there before the 200 amp service was put in.

G17GUY · 07-20-2009, 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by windowguy

its copper the whole way.. here's a picture.. the black wire on the bottom left goes to the grounding rod outside. you can see it attaches to the 'inlet' side of the water meter.. then there's the black wire just hanging in the air that you see has a silver metal connector on the topside of the water meter, but its not connected. I feel so stupid i can't say if that was ever there before the 200 amp service was put in.

Just put it back in the lug and snug it down.

Does the end of the wire have a set screw indentation like it was terminated prior.

If it was removed for some reason or if it was never terminated to begin with, ether way it should be terminated and extending the low impedance ground and not just hanging there.

Don't you remember all the soldiers that have died due to non grounded sytems.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4489783&page=1

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_w...even_the_.html

http://mssparky.com/2008/09/180-volt...eam-to-ground/

J. V. · 07-20-2009, 11:42 AM

Never seen a water meter inside. How do they read it? Just curious. Ours are all outside next to the road.

AndrewF · 07-20-2009, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J. V.

Never seen a water meter inside. How do they read it? Just curious. Ours are all outside next to the road.

I've seen both around here. The inside ones have an external counter that is mounted outside on the wall that is triggered by a reed sensor per revolution on the water meter.

windowguy · 07-20-2009, 02:07 PM

if you look at the picture you can see a brown wire coming in.. that's a phone wire.. some time in the 70's they retrofitted the water meters to send a signal through the phone system.

yes the black ground wire definitely was indented which means it was hooked up at some point.. i just don't know if it was intentionally disconnected when my 200 amp service went in.

**Termite** · 07-20-2009, 02:42 PM

The code requires that the water line to be a grounding electrode if available. Yours is available and should in fact have a grounding electrode conductor connected. With the meter inside, the jumper is necessary to bond the metallic plumbing within the house to the grounding system since the meter probably breaks metallic continuity at its unions. If your waterline were PEX or plastic then you wouldn't have to connect to it as it wouldn't serve as an effective grounding path.

Your conductor and the jumper definitely need to be hooked back up. The ground rod is great but the waterline's a better (and required in your case) ground.

theatretch85 · 07-21-2009, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by windowguy

if you look at the picture you can see a brown wire coming in.. that's a phone wire.. some time in the 70's they retrofitted the water meters to send a signal through the phone system.

Actually thats not a phone line, it runs to unit on the outside of the house that the meter readers can read the meter with. I have yet to see a water meter that connects to your phone line to read the meter. Usually the unit on the outside of the house is near the spigot in the front of the house or gas meter, etc, its usually near an existing opening.

nap · 07-21-2009, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J. V.

Never seen a water meter inside. How do they read it? Just curious. Ours are all outside next to the road.

In the old days, the water meter reader actually was allowed access to the inside of the house to be able to read the meter.

**Termite** · 07-21-2009, 04:20 PM

The water company around here uses fancy meters in older homes that send a remote signal to the meter reader as he drives or walks by the home. No wires! They look EXPENSIVE.

nap · 07-21-2009, 04:34 PM

currently, if the water meter is inside, around here they use the remote mounted read outs. (wired)

what the electric company has done though is start to install meters that can send the data back to the POCO via the power line. No more meter readers at all, eventually.

Scuba_Dave · 07-21-2009, 04:59 PM

My plumber didn't install the jumper across the water filter I had him install
I installed it afterwards
Our meter is inside, electronic box for reading on the side of the house

thegonagle · 07-21-2009, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theatretch85

Actually thats not a phone line, it runs to unit on the outside of the house that the meter readers can read the meter with. I have yet to see a water meter that connects to your phone line to read the meter. Usually the unit on the outside of the house is near the spigot in the front of the house or gas meter, etc, its usually near an existing opening.

Since the water utilities are municipally owned and the bill comes from the city, each city area is going to have their own system. Up north, it's impossible to put the water meter outdoors in an accessible area, because they would freeze in the winter. Therefore, the water meter is usually located in the basement. In the olden days, the meter reader would knock on your door once a month (or every three months in Minneapolis where I grew up), you'd let them in to do their thing, and ten seconds later, they'd be gone. Obviously, this presented problems for the utilities when nobody was home, so remote displays and automated reading systems were developed.

My dad's houses in Bloomington had the remote displays on the front of the house. The city of Minneapolis installed phone line systems in the 80's that "call home" with a reading once per month. The city of Columbia Heights has electronic devices attached to their meters that respond to a radio signal sent by meter-reader from the street.

So that could be a phone line, it could lead outdoors to a remote display, or it could be an antenna wire.

The gas company has similar remote reading methods for indoor-mounted gas meters, but in the olden days, they sent meter readers to your door as well. (These days, the gasco prefers to mount the meters outdoors--I suppose they've figured out how to make them read correctly in all temperatures.)