Does my house have a grounding problem?

Question

I've been looking at how my house is grounded because I want to install an antenna outside for amateur radio. After poking around, I'm suspicious something isn't right. I think I'm probably going to have to call an electrician, but as a first step I was hoping to see if anyone has encountered anything like this before. Ok here we go:

• My meter is not connected to the house. It is attached to a post by the street approx 300 feet from the house. From there, the line that services my house is under ground and goes directly into my basement via PVC conduit (nothing is exposed above the ground near the house).
• Inside my basement at the panel, I can see a large gauge stranded copper wire that exits the panel and is clamped in two places on the copper water service pipe.
• On the same board that my panel is on, the phone service box & incoming cable tv line are grounded via a clamp to my electrical panel (keep in mind this is inside the house).

I cannot locate any ground rods outside of the house near where the electrical service enters the basement. It seems like everything is bonded together inside my basement. From googling, I believe that at one time grounding to water pipes was code, but I'm pretty sure ground rods are also required now. Our house was built in 2009 when the previous house that was here was torn down.

Up by the street where my meter is, there is a ground rod right next to the telephone pole, but I have no idea what is connected to it. I'm attaching some pictures that shows the situation. If my electric service was grounded way out there, would that be legit since the line feeding my house is under ground?

I'm wondering if I need to install a ground rod right outside my basement + tie that to my electrical panel. Then I would be able to put up my antenna and connect it to the ground rod. I'm weirded out that my cable and phone are grounded inside the house instead of outside. Grounding an antenna inside the house seems like a bad idea to me. Anyway, I'll probably be calling an electrician, but would love feedback from your great minds. Thanks!

EDIT:

I took the covers off my panels. My setup is a little more complicated than most because we have a generator with an automatic transfer switch. The electric service enters the generator panel. The generator panel feeds the main panel.

I am reasonably certain that I don't have a ufer ground. In the main panel there are two grounding wires:

1. One coming from the generator panel
2. One exiting the main panel and attaching to my water main

Inside the generator panel:

1. I can see the ground that connects the generator to the main panel
2. There is another ground that exits the generator panel through conduit that goes to a shutoff switch box on the OUTSIDE of my house.

Inside the outside switch box:

1. The ground from the generator panel is connected with a nut to another ground.
2. The connected ground goes into my generator via a conduit.

I can't see any visible indication around the generator that there is a wire exiting it into a ground rod. The only possibility would be if there is something penetrating the concrete slab the generator sits on.

It looks like it would be fairly simple to add a ground rod and either tie it into the ground that is in the outside switch box, OR do that + have it be a continuous wire that routes into the house and connects to the generator panel and main panel.

I'm going to call an electrician. It really seems like my house isn't properly grounded, but also looks pretty simple to fix. Any further advice is greatly appreciated!

Some additional pictures of the grounding:

Main panel ground from generator panel + water main ground:

Main panel ground from generator panel + water main ground exiting the panel:

Generator panel ground exiting the house via conduit at the top:

Generator panel to main panel ground + generator panel ground to outside conduit:

Generator disconnect switch on outside of house. This connects the generator panel ground to a ground that goes into the generator box.

UPDATE 12/30/2021:

I had an electrician come out and take a look. He thinks everything is ok, but I'm still not totally sure. My meter that is up at the street (~300 feet from my house) has ground rods, identified by a ground wire going into the ground by the meter. From there, 3 wires are run under ground to my main panel in the house (2 hots and a neutral). My house does not have separate ground rods. The main panel is bonded to my water main and that is bonded to the incoming neutral. All this passed inspection before I bought the house so it is probably ok, but I suspect the fact that two wires are doubled up on the large grounding lug on the panel are probably not ok (1 wire is my water bond, the other bonds the main panel to my generator panel). I want to add ground rods regardless because I need them for the antenna I want to put up. Not sure where that should connect. I'm hesitant to connect that to my ground/neutral bus because if the green screw that bonds ground to neutral were ever removed that might be bad. Wondering if my panel needs a ground bus that connects to the main grounding lug.

UPDATE: photo of the inside of the meter box up at the street (shows the neutral being bonded to ground -- note that my main panel is set up as a main panel (not a subpanel). The main panel has my cold water bond connected to the ground lug, which is bonded to the neutral. I think there may be an exception to allow two ground to neutral bonds since the meter box exclusively feeds the main panel, and the whole system in my house originates from the main panel.

Answer 1

OK, let's talk about the electrical system's Grounding Electrode System first off.

Out at the pole -- and this is not in our jurisdiction (NEC), it is in the power company's codebook (NESC): the pole-top transformer has its neutral wire grounded to a pole-side grounding rod. That is what makes it "neutral".

In NEC territory now, we receive power at the meter, through to the main disconnect switch. Which is almost always a circuit breaker also. That will be the switch behind that little door there. At this point - the first disconnect past the meter -- we have the "service point" and the system bonding. Here, we have another set of ground rods (your Grounding Electrode System or GES) which turns into your house's Equipment Grounding Conductor system. It starts here.

So, 2 different stacks.

• Neutral: Utility transformer -> neutral bar -> circuits
• Ground: GES (rods) -> ground bar -> EGC in each circuit.

Further, neutral is bonded to ground here, and this is the only place in your system where it is bonded. Do not bond neutral and ground in 2 places.

Then, power is carried in 4 wires from this point to your house. Since the house is a separate building, it also needs its own GES (ground rods) bonded to EGC (ground wires in circuits).

Now if the work predates 2008, sometimes the run from main breaker into the house is only 3-wire.* In that case, the neutral-ground bond moves to the indoor panel... but again, still only one.

And after that, EGC (ground wires) are distributed normally throughout the house as "that third bare wire" that's in every cable.

So, I would say your next step is to make sure your grounding system is complete, at the panels. The GES wires need to be continuous (not spliced) between the panel and the ground rod.

Modern standard requires 2 ground rods at least 6 feet apart, unless a ground rod passes an expensive impedance test.

Older rules allowed a water main pipe to substitute for ground rods, but that is fading due to the use of plastic water mains.

Also, an "Ufer ground", a rod cast into a concrete foundation, is about the best ground rod you can get!

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* I am completely ignoring metal conduit installations where the conduit is used as ground conductor. Because yours is not that.

Answer 2

I decided to make my comments into an answer because I have some things to add:

I don't know if Harper made it clear in his answer, although very informative, but I'd like to encourage you to go ahead and add a couple ground rods to your panel. Just make sure you connect the conductor to the ground bar and not the neutral bar(s). It's common practice for city water utilities to install a dielectric union on your water main to reduce electrical noise on their system.

Also, the ground wire running to your water main needs to have a bonding fitting at the end where the cable exits the conduit to connect to your water main. It's a pretty short run, so it's probably not a huge issue. The reason why is because of the inductive reactance that can occur between the copper wire inside the conduit and the metal pipe. This can be significant when we're talking about thousands of joules during a lightning strike. See photo.

EDIT:

In fact, if that's #6 AWG or better copper wire, you could just get rid of the metal conduit. Or better yet, put it in PVC conduit.

Answer 3

Cross-bond whatever antenna grounds you have to that clamp on your main panel

The clamp on your panel is what's called an Intersystem Bonding Termination (IBT) device, and is there for the express purpose of providing non-electrician folk (like telephone and cable techs, and yes, people putting up antennas) a place to land grounding wires. So, I'd use a #6 copper wire to cross bond whatever grounding you set up for your antennas to that bonding termination block; this way, if mains shorts to the antenna ground, it'll trip the breaker like it should.