Hey guys. My new sat system was installed about a week ago or so. I'm sure the guy didn't ground the system. We discussed it briefly. There doesn't appear to be a grounding point in the area where my dish has to be installed. The electrical boxes and such that are outside of the building are on the other side and upwards...(building is on a hill). What options do I have to have it grounded....if there is any. I know the thing where if a ground rod was installed that it is supposed to be bonded to the building's ground. Is there a distance thing to consider between rods? There are several buildings in the this neighborhood close together...would they have their own grounding source? If so, how would each not conflict with the building next door? I'm sure I have already experienced an issue due to static. The other day, there were strong winds and at one point, my DSL went out (connected to the DVR through router and ethernet cable), and both of my DVRs reset. My DSL is now fine after a reset of the modem. I would appreciate some input without the usual grounding arguing. Thanks.
Satellite Grounding Question
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Not that I'm aware of. I looked outside.....didn't see anything. There might be a outside faucet a few feet away but, I read that isn't a good thing to use.
It can be, also what is available under the house? Many times you can find something to ground to, or run a #10 copper wire under the house and bond it to the eBox.
As far as the other houses, they are all bonded to whatever transformer they pull power from.
As far as the other houses, they are all bonded to whatever transformer they pull power from.
There isn't a way to get under these buildings. I have a tech coming out Friday to check on a possible receiver problem that I seem to be having. I guess I will have him look around.
My dish is grounded to a water pipe and it seems to work fine. Yes, I know it's not the ideal situation but it's what is available. My electrical service is on the complete opposite side of the house and we're slab on grade here so there's no crawl space. I don't even want to think how long a wire would have to be to reach the service from the dish but 75 feet would be about the shortest distance. Driving another rod isn't happening, not only because of bonding issues but because I live on nearly solid limestone and digging a 1 foot deep hole is an issue much less thinking of trying to drive a several foot long grounding rod. You do the best you can sometimes even if it isn't textbook.
I'm pretty sure my installer didn't ground my system either. The dish is on a 2nd floor condo balcony, without an electric meter or water pipe in sight. How would installers have been instructed to ground this kind of setup?
I know I got DirecTV to get an installer out here do to the system not being ground, which goes against NEC code.
A system that is not grounded is a code violation, when the 2nd installer/tech came out they ran it to our water pipe main that comes in the house. even thought 10 feet away was our breakerbox and electric meter.
A system that is not grounded is a code violation, when the 2nd installer/tech came out they ran it to our water pipe main that comes in the house. even thought 10 feet away was our breakerbox and electric meter.
You really cant.. grounding to many commercial and apartment buildings is difficult. I cant say its a policy but lets just say there would be thousands of pissed of customers if Apartments didnt go in just because of a lack ground. I know when I was a FS I wouldnt even QC an apartment. D* generally wont either unless there are complaints.
But when they do get complaints, lets say someone like "Stonecold" who would piss and moan a thousand hours because of it would simply result in D* discontinuing service for that complex and removing their equipment.
No I wold piss and moan to who ever owns the apartment complex to allow you the rude installer to put the dish where it could be properly grounded.
Sometimes you can't ground a system. Its impossible because of dish location and POE. I hate customers like the above that will call in and bitch and moan about a dish not being grounded. I have to drive 50 miles for twenty bucks and find out their is no grounding source. We are not allowed to drive grounding rods nor do most installers carry that on the truck. My sh*t outside isn't grounded and I've never had a problem. I'll ground if their is a ground. Why the hell would anyone ground to a cold water pipe. Around here all the pipe ties in to PVC making it useless as a grounding source. A little piece of copper wire isn't going to prevent 50,000 volts from getting into the house if a lighting strike happens. Stop busting techs balls or ground the crap yourself if you feel that un-easy about it. I'll tell someone they can kiss my ass in a heartbeat if they want to complain about grounding. Again if a grounding source is near then by all means ground if not screw it. You can't ground everything.
I don't know where "around here" is but, at least in my house, the cold water pipe is copper with no PVC in the delivery system. No, it's not going to do much good in a direct strike but it does bleed off static build up. It is what it is and I'm not going to lose sleep over it. It's either this way or I go cable and I'm not going cable.
Umm I know I am a bastard about things, but the first words out of the techs mouth were do you remember who did this sh!tty job. Yeah that sounds like me being very petty I was so petty that even before I could say anything my pettyness leaped over to the tech.
I did not have a problem with the water pipe ground that he did as it all copper piping. Now that might be different later on, as the city keeps saying that eventually they are going to overhaul the water service and have pvc mains but for now it copper it goes down deep enough so it a decent ground.
Now I know there are installer on this forum who saw one of my other post and that I am a real bastard at times. But m 2nd installer is amazing job very please basically went through got to the mans direct supervisor (installer gave me his bosses cell ) praised him made sure the man got the going rate for an install and not a service call. I gave him a 40 dollar tip.
With me you do a crappy job well watch out I call you out on it. You do a great job and I will go out of my way for you. Might be a bit simplistic but I have more personal cell numbers of fiber, phone, satellite techs since I tip nicely and generall a nice person when something is done right.
In the long run I tend to get better service and less hassle out of the company.
Surprsingly I have had my old secondary dish hit by lighting . ( attached to my home office which was a small 1 bed 1 bath guess house ( no kitchen sigh) on the back corner of my property. I had old D500 two twin singles attached to sw64 switch and a 2nd dish at 61.5 Went to my 7200. Lighting hit the 119/110 dish made it extra cripsy ( I was not there I was sleeping ) So the next morning I see this I thought everything was toast. TV was fine, 7200 was fine, SW64 Dead, D500 LNBs dead , physical dish really dead , 61.5 lnb working. Nothing more then a switch that was ground to the water main for the guess house.
Just a side point, I dont worry about lighting much when I am in albany as I dont see much.
But when I am living in my florida home, (90%) of the time. I see it alot and often, we are not the lighting capital of the world for nothing now.
It's hard to say what a lightning strike will do but usually it's nothing good. 
The closest I've come was a strike on a house 4 doors down the street, about half a city block. I just happen to be outside letting my dog do her thing when it hit. I think we both covered the 15 or so feet back to the house in one large step. As for the neighbor....hit the stainless steel cap on his brick chimney and pretty much turned that into a solid welded piece of scrap. Not so amazingly is that it traveled throughout his house and pretty much fried everything electronic from his TVs to his computers to his dishwasher. He showed me a couple of his surge protectors and it was obvious the units tried to do their job but got turned into abstract plastic art forms. Interestingly there was no fire but the house had to be totally rewired from the service through every switch and outlet. Not easy or pleasant to do in a totally finished house. I certainly advocate doing as much as reasonably possible but there are no guarantees.
Fully understand the Florida experience. A few years in Orlando and I could almost set my watch to the afternoon thunder and lightning storms.
The closest I've come was a strike on a house 4 doors down the street, about half a city block. I just happen to be outside letting my dog do her thing when it hit. I think we both covered the 15 or so feet back to the house in one large step. As for the neighbor....hit the stainless steel cap on his brick chimney and pretty much turned that into a solid welded piece of scrap. Not so amazingly is that it traveled throughout his house and pretty much fried everything electronic from his TVs to his computers to his dishwasher. He showed me a couple of his surge protectors and it was obvious the units tried to do their job but got turned into abstract plastic art forms. Interestingly there was no fire but the house had to be totally rewired from the service through every switch and outlet. Not easy or pleasant to do in a totally finished house. I certainly advocate doing as much as reasonably possible but there are no guarantees. Fully understand the Florida experience. A few years in Orlando and I could almost set my watch to the afternoon thunder and lightning storms.
I totally understand its important to ground, I'm just trying to throw out that you can't always ground. My installs are always BEAUTIFUL! Sometimes those installs are not grounded because their isn't a grounding source, at lease near the dish and poe. In this part of the country, Eastern NC. PVC is the main line coming in to the house but copper pipe used to feed the home, so grounding to a cold water pipe would eventually lead to PVC. I've seen a couple of homes with PVC everywhere. Grounding a system is a plus but I'm not going to bust any guys balls if the install is excellent but no ground. Now if some jack leg comes and throws a dish in the ground no concrete, cables all over the yard, no ground, ect, ect. Yeah I'll call him out. Tipping the guy that comes out to fix the last guys screw up deserves praise. A lot of peeps could give two sheets about the next tech that comes out there. No installer makes enough off a service call to make up for a re-install. I hate piecing together somebody else's crap. Even if your not a tech you can look at an install and know if its crap or was done by a professional. All I'm saying if the guy came and done a nice job the first time just didn't ground either because he forgot or the ground isn't near or available then why call in and try to get his ass chewed about it. Give the installer a break if the install was done efficiently and neat. On a crap install, Grounding is going to be the least of your problems for years to come.....
Oh you didnt see my orginal posting about my install.
1. No grounding with 4 differnent spots he could of grounded two.
2. Put the drip loop on the in a spot where it very visable and ugly when all he had to do was move it 1 foot to the right so it was out of street side and neighborhood view ( i did not ask him to take the cabling out of his way. Asked to have everything brought into my outdoor panel with my dish network switch plus telephone and cable drops. he for some reason half way undid my dp44 switch leaving it dangling in the box. and then proceed to splice into my cable vs un hooking the drops from the 2 dp44 switches *one he left alone
3. left a mess everywhere
4. lie about what was extra and what was not. basically just wanted to get out there and to his next job.
5. sloppy work all around.
2nd installer just could not belive the piss poor job the first one did. Spent 5 hours correcting it. I might be a dtv noob and zyengri might hate me because I expect quality work to be done.
Now Example up in NY in a 2 story place where all my wires run via the attic and the dish is on the roof there is a ground but it 35 feet down I dont except that to be grounded. But you do a ground block yet not attach it to anything especially when there is a coper main water pipe and a foot to the left is a ground block for my AC condensor leading to the ground on the break box and then 5 feeet fom that is the actual electrical box. I kinda expect an installer to pick one and ground the system.
Oh #4 being 25 feet away 7 foot ground rod fought tooth and nail to go down into the lime stone crust of florida soil.
Since Zygenri is always bashing me I figure he probably like my first installer and not the great 2nd installer.
1. Do a nice clean professional job.
2. Do what you say your going to do and not something else.
You become my new best friend and will get side work from me
+you get a tip. ( Down here even though it mostly inhabbited by yankees, most people wont tip ) I was borned in Florida and raised here too. When I took my first 6 month assignment as an AS400 programer for a 3 letter Company that just got bailed out up in Albany, NY people tiped there trash guy , and there ups guy etc, every since then I tip anyone for an outstanding job done.
1. Do a sloppy half ass job
2. Say your going to do something then do the opposite.
Have me be the biggest bastard of all time. I bash you here on the forums and call your boss and basically raise hell.
I don't disagree with someone calling in on a sloppy tech. Hell a few of us track down some of them because we are having to fix their crap. Weird thing about this business is their isn't a lot of consequences for sloppy work. Hell a lot of times its hard to track down who actually did the original install. It sucks but it happens, I've been doing this for five years and I've got pretty good at it. I've met all types of customers and I've actually drove 50-75 miles to install a 12" piece of copper to the utility ground because the previous tech didn't. the installs were absolutely perfect. Customer just wanted to bitch about it and actually talked down on a tech which I thought done an excellent job. It pissed me off some kind of bad, but I've also been to hundreds of jobs which the tech did a sloppy job, no ground of course, but like I said in my last post, that was the least of their problems.
I got lucky since the first tech left his card with my nieghbor he was easy to track down since he was working for the same company.
I know I come off as an ahole but I am one of those customers that come off as an ahole to everyone until I figure out if you fit into category 1 or 2.
Their are a few guys I work with myself included that won't deal with a butt-hole customer that jumps on your back as soon as you get out the truck. I'll roll out. My fuse is too short and it wouldn't take much before I start swinging. Never know, you might have pissed off the best installer in the area by coming at them with an attitude. Next guy that shows up might be the worst causing a lot of frustration getting someone that knows what their doing to your house.
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