Excellent. I thought this was a re-run until I read it and found that it was not only a good analysis of the accident, but it was in a church magazine where it will do some good. Thank you, whoever wrote this. The writing is good, too.

Sorry for the churches loss. This is why I made a 200 foot lead for my meter. I was trained in the Navy to not allow anymore than two Ohms of resistance on the ground bus to any device. All equipment bonds had to be less than .01 between bonded devices. As I once repaired audio equipment I have found many older devices using isolated grounds in their power supplies. I have been tickled many times because of this.

NOW it`s explained... on the first run of this, the available data was non technical and incomplete to form an opinion. I`d only suggest that an `updated` label should be put on the newsletter`s subject.

I remember reading about this in the news when it happened. This does a good job of describing in layman's terms what caused and could cause such an event. I worry, however, about people believeing that conduit can effectively serve as the grounding conductor back to the circuit protection device. Thanks for distributing the follow up on the incident.

Sam Williams

Why did the plumbing not act as the ground in this case? Was this not a permanently installed baptistry?

When I first read this, I wondered how a GFCI would have helped if there had been a fault to an ungrounded case. But if the energized conductor faulted to the case and there was no return path for the current, it would have raised the water heater and the water to 120V. The fact that the water elevated to a lower voltage indicates that there was a high impedance path available. Since there was another path available, the current on the phase conductor and that on the neutral conductor would not have been equal. That imbalance would have been enough to cause a GFCI to operate. However, if there was no path whatsoever (like some of the older installations), a GFCI would not have helped. GFCIs are wonderful things, but they won't work as desired if there is nothing for them to sense. Remember to check your system to make sure that it will work properly and that you aren't just ending up installing a false sense of security.

eletrical work