Quote Originally Posted by msumoose View Post
I get ya, but it still happened!
All was done correctly, and he had assurances from the builder that it was in spec.
The first quote contradicts the second one.

If everything HAD been done correctly, then the events you described would NOT have happened! Bonding creates an electrical equipotential area. In fact, the full name for bonding IS "equipotential bonding". Equipotential means, you've created an area where the voltage potential is the same everywhere.

A bonded pool area MIGHT be at 300V above / below ground (ie, 220 AC), but within the area EVERYTHING would be at the SAME potential, and you could NOT get shocked, for the same reason a bird on a wire doesn't get shocked: the on the birds left may be a 10KV transmission line, but so is the line on the right, and there is NO difference.

Let me say it again: if a pool is CORRECTLY bonded, you CANNOT be shocked while you are completely within the bonded area. You MAY be shocked when you move from one area to another by, for example, stepping off the deck. But, if you are INSIDE the bonded area, and you get shocked you know TWO things:
1. There is a wiring or voltage problem somewhere
AND
2. The pool is not correctly bonded.

Bonding is PRECISELY intended to prevent the situation in #1 (bad wiring, say in the lights) from shocking people.

People constantly confuse bonding and grounding, even though they are completely distinct. Grounding means tying something to ground potential; bonding means creating an equipotential zone (which the ground is not, because it is a high resistance conductor, allowing local variations in what the "ground potential" actually is). You CAN *ground* a bonded area, but it's also possible to have a bonded area at 1000V above ground. (In actual fact, because of the way pools are constructed, most bonding cages are intrinsically grounded to 'earth' potential.) You can ALSO tie the bounding GROUND to the wiring COMMON, so that there are NO local variations in ground potential in the pool area. (On the other hand doing this can create ground loops, but let's leave that alone, for now. In any case, it's almost impossible to BOND a pool, without tying the bond field both the earth ground AND to the wiring common.)

But, AGAIN: If you get shocked, while you are IN your pool OR ON your deck, from anything other than a MASSIVE current flow (transmission line falling into the pool; lightning, etc.) THEN you KNOW that the bonding is NOT correct.