The post below is getting Full and confusing, I was an electrician(?) for 40 years and have been retired almost 8 years. I burned my code books and tryed to forget most of this stuff. As I rember it the NEC has 2 terms -ground(ing) and bonded/ bonding. You ground the service and bond the devices. That said some things are bonded to the system other things (structures) are grounded. I have worked at many places over the years and did a LOT of grounding. At a steel mill every column had a ground "nest" consisting of 3 thirty foot ground rods spaced ten feet apart connected with a loop of 500MCM bare copper wire and run to a grounding plate on the column. This cable was "cadwelded" to each rod and no mechancal splices were allowed.. At a school of steel frame construction, at all corners we also put down a triple nest of ground rods this time 4/0 wire and also cadwelded joints.
To take the cake I worked in a nuclear powerhouse, everything was "bonded" with 4/0 solid copper wire all cadwelded. I worked on the lighting in one area and instead of insulated neutral wire we had to use #12 solid bare wire, all joints were twisted, soldiered and wirenuts. All this in EMT conduit.
I never worked on any farms in my career but I would guess all grain bins, permanent grain dryers, elevators, basecally all metal structures should be grounded with ground rods. Ths would be for lighting protection. Grain dust, as all of you know is very explosive, so static sparks are not good.
Now all electrical equipment is bonded /grounded to the panel which is also "bonded" to the bulding if metal constructed. It seems like we were to bond the metal sidding on like a pole bulding. (not to sure on that). I mostly worked on industral steel framed buldings. Now if you want to go into " explosion proof" or ???? you are going to have to start another thread. Just leave you with this thought "do you have a 120 volt pump on your fuel tank"? and is it wired right?
joe
cadweld
To take the cake I worked in a nuclear powerhouse, everything was "bonded" with 4/0 solid copper wire all cadwelded. I worked on the lighting in one area and instead of insulated neutral wire we had to use #12 solid bare wire, all joints were twisted, soldiered and wirenuts. All this in EMT conduit.
I never worked on any farms in my career but I would guess all grain bins, permanent grain dryers, elevators, basecally all metal structures should be grounded with ground rods. Ths would be for lighting protection. Grain dust, as all of you know is very explosive, so static sparks are not good.
Now all electrical equipment is bonded /grounded to the panel which is also "bonded" to the bulding if metal constructed. It seems like we were to bond the metal sidding on like a pole bulding. (not to sure on that). I mostly worked on industral steel framed buldings. Now if you want to go into " explosion proof" or ???? you are going to have to start another thread. Just leave you with this thought "do you have a 120 volt pump on your fuel tank"? and is it wired right?
joe
cadweld