Yoter8600

Thanks for the reply. I will look at the link you gave. What you said confirms what I thought. The one thing that makes no sense that I always hear is not letting the lightning in your house yet that is essentially what is happening when you bond your lightning ground rod to your service ground. That creates a route into your breaker box. I will probably just move the ground wire for the service by putting a ground rod in the back of the house and bond everything together that way. That would be the shortest route and probably the easiest. That will get it off the water line. It looks like I should be able to do that.

I know this has been discussed and just read a 3 page discussion but it did not answer my question. I am setting up my shack with GMRS and Ham. I understand the grounding and bonding but have a bonding wire routing question. My home was built in 1972 and the service ground from the breaker box connects to the copper water pipe inside the house where it goes through the concrete in the basement. That line runs 5’ under the ground. My grounding rods are about 40’ away on the end of the house. Can the wire for bonding the service ground and mast ground rods be run through my floor joists? It will also pass close the duct for my heat registers. Is that an issue? I read a post somewhere that said not to but have only seen that once. I can’t go in front of my house or I would have to tear up a lot of asphalt and concrete. Going all the way around the back to the front would be about 150’ and pass close to my gas line and gas meter unless I go further out in the lawn. A second question. Should that bonding wire run directly from rod to service ground or can I run it from rod to bonding box where my lightning arrestors are then from the box to the service ground? Been doing a lot of reading and get more confused as I read more. Can’t find anything that really covers my situation.