I have a bare copper wire that runs from the breaker box to the hot water hose under the kitchen sink. The electrician did this. Is this safe, if not how do I fix it?
Electrical – Bare copper wire under kitchen sink
electrical-panelwiring
Related Solutions
Sounds like white (neutral) isn't connected somewhere. Find it and fix it!
Each of the 'conduits' as you say, have an uninsulated ground conductor. If there are three such 'conduits' then there has to be a splice joining them. Add your ground there.
I've installed many insteon devices before. The first thing I do, and my best advise, is to spread out all the wiring after removing he old switch and before installing the new, to know absolutely what you have to work with.
If you absolutely have to connect to a ground without cutting and splicing the original, I would recommend a split bolt.
It's going to look weird as hell in an outlet box, but if you thoroughly clean/abrade the existing ground so it makes good contact, a split bolt should do the trick
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Best Answer
Carefully inspect your Grounding Electrode System
This shouldn't be it. The Grounding Electrode System is a fat copper ground wire that goes from your service panel to any or all of:
Once it's proven out that the Grounding Electrode System is tip-top...
...then any other ground wires aren't such a big problem.
It is likely the purpose of this ground wire is not to ground the panel to actual earth (the Grounding Electrode (GES) ... But to ground an appliance to the panel (the Equipment Safety Grounding Conductor, EGC).
That is to say, maybe that ground wire isn't there to send fault current through the water heater, but rather to prevent fault current from a troublesome hot-water-connected device (cough dishwasher cough) from going through the water heater.