I am redoing the electrical in my 1940s house.
The house has no grounding electrodes but the meter and panel are grounded to my water pipe outside in the front of the house. (This actually looks like someone else's recent DIY hack job.)
To bring the electrical work up to code, I want to drive a ground rod right under the electric utility's meter. The only problem is that my gas meter would be located just a foot or so away.
I've already checked to make sure the rod itself wouldn't be driven into a gas line, but I need to know if it would be against code or just plain unwise to drive a ground rod here.
I found a very similar question here, but none of the responses specifically answer the question with regard to safety or code compliance:
Best Answer
The electrical ground to the water pipe is required and not a hack. It is supposed to be connected as close to the supply side as practical, preferably upstream of any cutoff valves.
There should also be an electrical ground connection to your gas line if any of the gas lines inside the house are conductive, like black pipe.
When I set out to install the ground rods for my house a few years ago, I knew they would be within 18 inches of the gas feed from the street—as they had just installed the gas line. I asked the gas company, electrical inspector, and electric utility if that was okay. They all said that was just fine with them provided it didn't nick the gas line.