Above ground pool bonding

[BigDave]

That's pretty much the NEC requirement for AG pools as I read it a couple years ago (without the pump bond). I'm still unsure about not including the pump housing in the bonding plan. But, if your electrician friend is betting his license on it ( he did sign the permit? ) then you should be OK - at least as far as the insurance goes. It is good that the bond wire is installed around the pool and bonded to the water.

The only un-bonded pools I've seen have been the Intex variety. Personally, when we had our donut, no one was allowed to touch the pool when it was connected to the electrical supply. Call me crazy but I wouldn't bet the lives of my family on the integrity of the insulation in the pump.

Just my 2 cents.

[PoolDoc]

Bonding and grounding are distinct and different ideas.

Bonding, properly done, creates an equipotential zone in which it is not possible for an uninsulated location to be at a different voltage from another location within that zone. No voltage difference = no potential for an electrical shock. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_bonding for a fuller -- if not completely accurate -- explanation.

Grounding involves tying one pole of an AC or DC circuit to the ground or earth. (Grounding is called "earthing" in UK-speak.) Grounding the external case of a motor, tool or other device eliminated the possibility of a voltage difference between the ground you're standing on, and the case of the tool you're working with. Explaining this more fully, and explaining the relationship between a "ground" and the "neutral" is somewhat difficult without getting into AC transformer wiring.

But here are some important points:

1. Both bonds and grounds fail if connections aren't maintained

2. Some allowed NEC methods are, in field practice, very likely to fail.
I personally hate conduit ground (grounds maintained via metal conduit, rather than by a separate wire) because if the conduit gets loose, the ground circuit is broken. I've been badly shocked by equipment that had a 'conduit ground'. Likewise, interrupted pool bond that uses the rebar or some other metal pool element as a primary path for the bonding circuit WILL fail in some pools.

3. I'm not sure what the current situation is, but in the past, the NEC *allowed*, but did not *require*, that the bonding circuit be tied to the grounding circuit. In actual fact, because inground pool pumps are both grounded and bonded, the bonding is grounded, at a minimum, via the pump motor case.
My recommendation is to (a) install un-interuppted bonding, that does not depend on any pool element to complete the circuit, (b) a fully wired ground to and from all exterior electrical panels, (c) a full driven ground rod at each pool panel, and (d) a wired connection between the panel ground and the bonding circuit.

4. But, it's not practical to tie the ground system to the bond field on AG pools using a double insulated pump, and serviced by a 2 wire feeder protected by a GFCI. In this case -- which I understand to be YOUR case -- I would recommend installing a full driven ground rod immediately adjacent to the pool, preferably in the dampest location around the pool, and tying the bonding wire to that ground rod.