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Electrical Ground to Water Pipe, No Earth Ground

I live in a house built in 1965 that has an older electrical panel, the with the spring-loaded breakers. I had an electrician to come out and do an inspection of my home's electrical system yesterday. When he checked out the panel, he noticed there is no earth ground to the panel. There is a ground wire going to the main water pipe, however. The electrician told me that the system is electrically safe with a ground only to the water pipe, but if a car were to hit a nearby utility pole we could end up without electricity to our home. He said that if we had an earth ground, if a car were to knock out a nearby utility pole we would still have power.

I want to get an earth ground installed and plan to do this. My question:

Does not having an earth ground to my panel all these years cause a negative effect on the various audio systems I've had? Does this affect things like bass weight, or solidity of the image etc?
Thanks.
foster_9
jea48
4,407 posts
 
Rlwainwright,

Thanks for the kind words.

Jmcgrogan2,

LOL, you can lead a horse to water, but ........
.
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swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
...but you can't make a pig sing ;-)
bbroussard
188 posts
 
Our previous home had the ground to a water pipe. We had a lightning strike hit the ground and cause a leak in the water line in the slab. Get somebody to ground you directly to earth with a copper rod.
foster_9 OP
1,638 posts
 
Jea48, thank you for the time it took for your detailed post! Yes, the panel is a Pushmatic. Looking at the water meter, I see one wire going to it and that wire goes to the inside of the meter housing. I also see another short metal wire that goes through a couple screws at the metal bottom of the meter. I may have an electrician look at the water meter to verify if there is an earth ground there since I'm not sure if the electrician that was here before looked there or not. But, Jea48 the electrician pulled the panel cover and said he did not see a place (I can't remember the term he used it was something like "tag" or something), for an earth ground wire and did not see an earth ground wire. He only saw a wire he said was going to the main water pipe and pointed over to the left of the panel box near the ceiling of the basement. The water meter is on the other side of the basement.
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Great answer by Jim, as usual! Regarding ...
Does not having an earth ground to my panel all these years cause a negative effect on the various audio systems I've had? Does this affect things like bass weight, or solidity of the image etc?
From a technical standpoint I can't envision any way in which an absent or ineffective earth ground could affect sonics in those or most other ways. And I'll add that I too have an older home (1950's in my case), and until I had the electrical panel replaced and a couple of ground rods installed several years ago I too had the panel grounded only via a water pipe. During the approximately 30 years I was in that home prior to the electrical upgrade, those years encompassing several upgrades of my speakers and various other parts of the system, I never sensed any lack of bass weight. Or of imaging and dimensionality, at least once I had moved to tube amplification many years ago.

Best regards,
-- Al
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