Installer Refused to Install
- Thread starter kganger
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Yeah, grounding is something I just do. Unless the customer is being difficult, or I have to wrap his house to ground it, I usually won't mention it. Its not something that is open for discussion.
Why would you hook up a ground wire to your sensitive--and expensive-- switch? That's what $0.40 ground blocks are for!
That static buildup is what can draw a lightning strike. It's not intended to take a strike. No sensible amount of wire is gonna be able to handel a direct strike. By getting rid of the static buildup you have a far smaller chance of attracting a strike.
But honestly I can't remember how many old systems I have seen that were not grounded. I am sure there a millions of them out there that are not grounded or up to NEC code. How many confirmed direct strikes have you seen. I have only ever seen 2 pictures of systems that took a direct hit.
It does not matter for my own personal peace of mind I ground systems.
The governing regulation in most locations is the National Electrical Code. It requires that all grounds be tied together. If you want your equipment to survive, the reasoning makes sense.
If the dish is not grounded and lightning strikes nearby, the current induced in the dish lead-in wire would find it's way to ground by arcing across components in the receiver and then to the neutral wire on the satellite receiver. There's another path to ground through the coax to the TV set and then it's neutral wire. That would damage the TV too.
In extreme situations, it would start a fire.
I completely disconnect my over the air TV antenna when lightning is likely.
I'd just do the install myself and ground however you can. To be quite honest with you I've only seen a few dish installs with grounds. Most of them don't have grounds anywhere nor have I seen these people have problems due to the no ground situation.
That being said...do I have dishes grounded? Yep... is it correct? Probably not.
That being said...do I have dishes grounded? Yep... is it correct? Probably not.
non-standard system
I have an .8 meter Channel Master dish (129)w/ a Dish 500 that's on the ground and maybe 3 ft away from the main elect ground to the house. Putting a ground block in line makes no sense in this situation.
I have an .8 meter Channel Master dish (129)w/ a Dish 500 that's on the ground and maybe 3 ft away from the main elect ground to the house. Putting a ground block in line makes no sense in this situation.
I have an .8 meter Channel Master dish (129)w/ a Dish 500 that's on the ground and maybe 3 ft away from the main elect ground to the house. Putting a ground block in line makes no sense in this situation.
I'm not seeing your logic. Personally, I would want something between the dish and the $200 switch. Are you saying it makes no sense because it is on a pole, or because it is so close?
G-block un needed
Putting in a groundblock makes no sense as that would just be another junction. If the ground is good there then it is still going to transfer the arc when connecting it from the switch. It is only 3 ft from all of the outdoor components to the main ground. BTW the pole is not in the ground. It is a non penetrating mount that was supplied w. the Ch M dish when it was originally installed and then de-installed. It is sitting on the concrete patio w/ the D-500 attached on the SE corner and an 80 lb bag of concrete as ballast. There are 2x4 under the mount that isolates it from the patio and that is what the D-500 is mounted to. Several years ago I was a commercial installer as well as home sat dishes. I have worked on every size dish from 13" up to 30 ft.
Putting in a groundblock makes no sense as that would just be another junction. If the ground is good there then it is still going to transfer the arc when connecting it from the switch. It is only 3 ft from all of the outdoor components to the main ground. BTW the pole is not in the ground. It is a non penetrating mount that was supplied w. the Ch M dish when it was originally installed and then de-installed. It is sitting on the concrete patio w/ the D-500 attached on the SE corner and an 80 lb bag of concrete as ballast. There are 2x4 under the mount that isolates it from the patio and that is what the D-500 is mounted to. Several years ago I was a commercial installer as well as home sat dishes. I have worked on every size dish from 13" up to 30 ft.
My dish installer attached the ground wire from the groundblock to a water spigot coming out of the wall of the house. Is this grounded propery?
Only if said water line is a solid piece of metal....not PVC....all the way back to where it comes into the home.
The spigot is in the back yard and the main water line comes in the front of the house. It is copper pipe but not solid because it tees into junctions in the plumbing.
They also had another ground wire from the grounding block to the electrical box servicing an evap. cooler on the roof. We had the cooler removed last year so this secondary grounding source went away too. From what I've read that wasn't properly grounded anyway.
So it sounds like our dish isn't grounded correctly. Since it was installed a few years ago with a few followup visit from other installers (who thought it was grounded properly) I wonder if a call to DISH would do any good?
Actually, I probably phrased it poorly. I should've stated, "as long as it's metal from the point of grounding, all the way to where it comes in from the street; no pvc in-between the coldwater clamp and the street. It doesn't matter if there are any tees.
A-ok
The statement about the dishes was to let you know that I'm not a neo-phyte to satellite work. As far as the ground yes it is OK. The spark was nothing more than a static discharge to ground. If you have never seen one then I'm very surprised. The ground block wouldn't make any difference the spark might show up at a different spot but that doesn't make any difference either. In an electrical circuit the charge is carried through out it. So the switch, LNB, coax, receiver, and ground will all have the same charge distributed over the entire circuit.
Well, I guess that makes it A-OK!
The statement about the dishes was to let you know that I'm not a neo-phyte to satellite work. As far as the ground yes it is OK. The spark was nothing more than a static discharge to ground. If you have never seen one then I'm very surprised. The ground block wouldn't make any difference the spark might show up at a different spot but that doesn't make any difference either. In an electrical circuit the charge is carried through out it. So the switch, LNB, coax, receiver, and ground will all have the same charge distributed over the entire circuit.
If the closest available ground is the water line, then put it there.
Ideally I try at all times to place my ground block and point of entry near the existing utilities and at first attempt bond to #6 copper, if nogo then corner clamp on the electric meter.
Not everything is equal, but if all your plumbing, at least to the spigot is all copper then just leave it. It's a small dish, not a 100' radio tower.
Ideally I try at all times to place my ground block and point of entry near the existing utilities and at first attempt bond to #6 copper, if nogo then corner clamp on the electric meter.
Not everything is equal, but if all your plumbing, at least to the spigot is all copper then just leave it. It's a small dish, not a 100' radio tower.
Copper pipes are an ok ground, but as an installer, it's my understanding that if you are going to use the copper water pipe as a ground, it has to be within 5 feet of where the pipes enter the house. If I'm wrong, somebody let me know.
As far as doing a job if there is no viable ground, I agree with the other post on here. I won't do a job if I can't ground the system, and though your completion rate may go down a bit, I find that it's only about 1 or 2 a month where you run into that situation, but I'm not going to risk the chargeback. Not to mention the fact that I do take pride in what I do. If I can't do it right, why do it at all?
The biggest frustration I have is with service calls. When I go out to a service call I am expected to bring everything up to code. There are too many times I've gone out to do a $35 service call and ended up running a lot of my cable, trenching new wire, changing fittings, (my fittings) grounding a system (with my #10 ground wire) and on and on.
I'm getting paid a lot less for that then the lazy guy that installed the job originally got.
I guess it all averages out so I can't complain too much, but it still burns me to see some of the really really bad jobs some installers have done.
I can always tell which installers pay for their own coax and which ones have it provided. How many times have we all seen 8 miles of cable strewn all across somebody's roof? How anybody could look at that and call that acceptable is beyond me. Those people are the reason that dish has become so strict.
Although I've never had a chargeback yet, I would like to see dish at least give 30 days to correct a problem, (at the techs expense, not theirs) if there is a qc problem before they chargeback. Not making excuses for bad work, but anyone who works as an installer knows how crazy your workload for the day can get. After working days upon days 14 hours a day sometimes you can get to where you miss something that you may have not even realized by getting in a hurry or just overlooking.
just my thoughts....
As far as doing a job if there is no viable ground, I agree with the other post on here. I won't do a job if I can't ground the system, and though your completion rate may go down a bit, I find that it's only about 1 or 2 a month where you run into that situation, but I'm not going to risk the chargeback. Not to mention the fact that I do take pride in what I do. If I can't do it right, why do it at all?
The biggest frustration I have is with service calls. When I go out to a service call I am expected to bring everything up to code. There are too many times I've gone out to do a $35 service call and ended up running a lot of my cable, trenching new wire, changing fittings, (my fittings) grounding a system (with my #10 ground wire) and on and on.
I'm getting paid a lot less for that then the lazy guy that installed the job originally got.
I guess it all averages out so I can't complain too much, but it still burns me to see some of the really really bad jobs some installers have done.
I can always tell which installers pay for their own coax and which ones have it provided. How many times have we all seen 8 miles of cable strewn all across somebody's roof? How anybody could look at that and call that acceptable is beyond me. Those people are the reason that dish has become so strict.
Although I've never had a chargeback yet, I would like to see dish at least give 30 days to correct a problem, (at the techs expense, not theirs) if there is a qc problem before they chargeback. Not making excuses for bad work, but anyone who works as an installer knows how crazy your workload for the day can get. After working days upon days 14 hours a day sometimes you can get to where you miss something that you may have not even realized by getting in a hurry or just overlooking.
just my thoughts....
I actually ran across this (last week). Customer was quite pleased. He never asked why I was so interested in that ground. Huge house. I sent it up as escalated.
As far as lighting......I got to see it hit a cell tower repeatedly nearby. Sweet jesus, that was awesome. Never seen one hit more than a couple times. This was 7-8 times.
