Grounded? How to tell?

[Tweakophyte]

Hi-

I had a 721 install (via the promo) and the upgraded me to a DP34. How can I tell if they grounded it? From what I see, there looks to be a screw in the lower left corner of the switch that has no wire connected to it. More obvious to me is there is no wire running into the ground.

Assuming there is no ground, what do you recommend?

Thanks,

 

[cdru]

Hi-

I had a 721 install (via the promo) and the upgraded me to a DP34. How can I tell if they grounded it? From what I see, there looks to be a screw in the lower left corner of the switch that has no wire connected to it. More obvious to me is there is no wire running into the ground.

Assuming there is no ground, what do you recommend?

Thanks,

The switch doesn't have to explicitly be grounded if another point along the system has a ground. Follow the lines into the house. There could be a grounding block that would also do the job. The Dish should be grounded as well.

 

[SimpleSimon]

If/when you find a ground wire, trace it and make sure it's going to the 'right' place.

Opinions differ as to what's 'right', but at the very least, electrical house ground (NOT neutral), in-dirt grounding rod, or, sometimes, a COLD water pipe that is in dirt ground.

 

[Tweakophyte]

There is no wire connected to the switch or the dishes. No grounding on the cable runs, either. I guess my stuff is floating. I will call Dish on this one (along with the romex issue from my other thread). Maybe that's why he pierce the romex.

 

[boba]

There is no wire connected to the switch or the dishes. No grounding on the cable runs, either. I guess my stuff is floating. I will call Dish on this one (along with the romex issue from my other thread). Maybe that's why he pierce the romex.

Looks like you got a real Quality install. Was this done by DNSC (Dish Network Service Corporation) the installation arm of DISH Network?

 

[Wayd Wolf]

I could be boring and quote the NEC entries but I won't. Suffice to say, you MUST be grounded to be legal. Upon selling a house or renting it, if your local inspector is on the ball, you could get in trouble if a lack thereof is caught.

1. #10 copper or #8 aluminum MINIMUM from the dish to the household electrical ground. Same thing goes from the ground blocks to the household electrical ground. ALL coax lines from the dish MUST run through ground blocks connected to ground.

2. The appropriate three points of attachment to household ground are:
a. Cold water, IF at least ten feet of it is metal AND those ten feet are encased in soil, AND it is strapped per NEC/local codes to household ground.
b. Ground rod, IF it is solid copper, AND it has at least eight feet encased in soil, AND it is strapped to household ground.
c. Service panel metallic case or directly connected metallic conduit, which will be part of the household ground.

While the NEC does specificy certain deviations left in the realm of the utilities, and the local codes which are law are the ultimate, the wire on messengered coax is not sufficient to ground a dish, nor is it sufficient to put only one line through a ground block, nor are the switches, splitters, diplexors, or other drop parts to be used for grounding. Only the ground block is supposed to be used.

CALL DISH. Bitch and moan. Threaten inspection by your local inspectors at which point you'll send a copy of it to the state regulatory authorities. For an added push, threaten to go to cable. If they don't fix it, do the above, get an electrician to fix it, and then send them the bill as well as an affadavit from the electrician. Stick it to them. I install Dish and tell anyone this who hasn't been grounded properly and can't seem to get customer service to listen. In the long run, this problem will only make things worse for DBS if they develop a reputation for looking the other way when the installers don't bother to follow basic electrical safety guidelines.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I thought "I" was an absolute freak about grounding, but you go WAY overboard, and I really would like you to quote chapter and verse of your sources that the messenger wire is not sufficient, or that switches are not to be used (take one apart and compare it to a ground block sometime), or most especially your contention that #10 wire is required - when many houses are using #14 for 15A 120VAC circuits (I wouldn't do that myself, but it's legal and often done).

 

[Tweakophyte]

Yes, it was done by DNSC (Dish Network Service Corporation) the installation arm of DISH Network. Did you happen to read my other thread about them drilling through my romex?

My service panel and grounding rod are on the other side of the house. If I am reading you correctly, they can not just pound another rod into the soil by the dish? Instead, they need to tie the rod into the ground of the panel?

 

[wkomorow]

Proper grounding is essential. In addition to the safety issues (important enough by themselves), Dish claims that improperly grounded units will sometimes cause problems with Caller ID.

When my Dish was first installed a number of years ago, the installers (Dish Network Installers) grounded the system to my natural gas line. When I got home to see how they ran the lines, I was really furious. (I think he was trying to ground it to the cold water line, but did not seem to know the difference between a natural gas line and a water line.) I decided to simply ground everything to the house's main grounding block myself, but if your is not grounded and do not feel like fixing it yourself, I would definitely call them back. Your install is warrantied for 90 days, so now is the time to take care of it.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Tweakophyte: A ground rod at the satellite service entry should be just fine. the primary objective is to drain static electricity from the dish & LNBFs themselves.

Secondary objective is to "encourage" a lightning strike to follow that same path to ground instead of coming into the house. It works up to a point, but it's still very important to have surge protection on the feed cables - get a power surge protector with the additional coax & phone ports, and use them all.

There's lots of arguments about proper types of grounding. I've saw a couple of licensed electricians almost get into a fight about whether a sub-panel should have a separate ground rod or not. My garage's sub-panel does have one, and the electrician that did it is now a state inspector for whatever that's worth. My dishes are grounded to yet a separate ground rod at the other end of the house, and a fourth one will be going in to ground the WiFi antenna that will be 70' off the ground.

I'm paying special attention to that one - it's going to be the highest piece of metal for a half-mile around - the mast ends 30' in the air (in a tree ), so it gets 4 10 gauge wires direct to a ground rod, the RF cable will then have a gas-discharge suppressor mounted & grounded at the service entry point.

 

[Wayd Wolf]

A separate ground rod IS NOT LEGAL. It MUST be backstrapped to the household ground, with at least a #6 copper line. And in almost every jurisdiction ANY modification of household ground MUST be done by a LICENSED electrician. In CT, that means an E-1. NO ONE but an electrician should ever drive any ground rods.

The central reason for grounding IS NOT static. The central reason for grounding is electrical safety. In all cases, electricity follows the path of least resistance to ground. If that path is through your receiver or you, that is wrong. It should be through the grounding system to the ground electrode.

Failure to ground properly can cause ground loop faults which since neutral is connected to ground at service entrance can throw off neutral and thus interfere with appliance motors causing overheating and possibly shock and/or fire. It can cause receivers and connected electronic equipment to overheat, arc over, catch fire, electrocute, etc.

SAFETY is the reason for grounding.

The 1999 and 2002 NEC both specify the appropriate cabling sizes for ground lines.

On top of this, local codes sometimes specify even heavier restrictions such as larger cable, composition and type (copper not aluminum, solid not stranded, etc.).

Even more, the SBCA guidelines are ALSO #10 copper or #8 aluminum. Both Dish Network and DirecTV are SBCA operations and failure to follow those standards violates their installation guidelines.

All in all, not grounding right is an all around bad idea.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I really hate for this to be my 1000th post, but there's just nothing else to answer right now.

Where do I start.

I guess first, you need to come to Colorado and red tag every garage, barn, and workshop with an electrical sub-panel. They all have grounding rods. They are required.

Second, anyone can wire their own property here - including banging copper rods into the ground. You must have a permit, and pass inspection, but a licensed electrician is not required. While I've done my share of wiring, I was busy, so I had an electrician do my garage, and he installed the required ground rod for it. I believe him. I KNOW he has a license. The inspector (who made a point of finding the ground rod) told me my guy was the best in the county. You on the other hand, I know nothing about.

The primary reason for grounding a satellite system is NOT electricity - if you mean house current. Satellite systems are low-voltage installations. If they were not, then satellite installers would be required to be licensed electricians - except when installing their own house. The primary reason to ground a dish IS static drain. Here, in the #2 lightning county in the country, we have ground rods attached to dang near everything we can. Draining static potential is the best (only?) way to prevent a lightning strike.

All in all, wayd wolf, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you have exactly that amount.

 

[Tweakophyte]

I had a few problems stemming from the upgrade. In the end I use the "CEO" approach and yesterday morning two high-level guys came out. The guys were awesome and definitely when above and beyond the call of duty.

First, they installed grounding blocks for all of the runs of cable. They grounded it the the cold water pipe. I started talking to them about how grounding seemed to be a controversial thing. It turns out that I had the guy who trains all of the installers why grounding is a REQUIREMENT. In fact, the installers get a ding if they do not ground the system.

Safety is a huge issue. Preventing a charge build-up across the boxes is an issue. The drain of static for lightening is less of an issue. He also said that many hard drives are getting fried on systems that are not grounded. He also said that they do not ground the newer switches because they are not rated for that (some of the older ones were). We talked about multiple grounding rods being a big no-no. Grounding blocks are the way to go and using cold-water pipes is the second option to tyeing into the single, main ground of the house.

I've got to tell you a bit more about the service I received. I had a problem with certain channels (205, 301) not been recognized by my 301. The guys believed that it might be from the barrels in my quad-pack home-run being 1GHz versus 3GHz rated, so they swapped all of those out. The theory is that the 1GHz barrels was overheating just enough to hinder the signal from the even number transponders, which happen to use 2.2Ghz. DishPro equipment requires more voltage from the box, and is more sensitive to issues like that. Time will tell if that works.

Finally, they diplexed my boxes back to the home run so I can watch my 721 on the bedroom TV (where the 301 is) and either box in the office. That was a huge improvement in my home distribution set-up. These guys went way above and beyond what was required and I appreciate it!