Electrical Ground to Water Pipe, No Earth Ground

Foster_9,

In my area repairing or upgrading the electrical service earth grounding electrode system would be considered electrical service maintenance and does need any city AHJ or utility power company involvement.

The utility power company does not need to be involved as the utility power will not need to be shut off to repair/install the necessary earth grounding needed to make the electrical service earth grounded and safe.

I can't believe the AHJ would require any property owner to install a new electrical service when all that is needed is to repair and or add to an existing electrical service grounding electrode system. I think the electrician you had was just trying to get a few thousand dollars of your money. Beats me why an electrical contractor would even suggest to a customer the AHJ and or utility power company would need to be involved in repairing or upgrading the grounding electrode system for an existing electrical service, especially the utility power company. If the service is not properly earth grounded and for whatever reason the service neutral connection at the utility transformer or the service weather head connection became loose or worse broken free from the service entrance neutral conductor there would be absolutely no path for the unbalanced 120V L1 to neutral and 120V L2 to neutral loads connected to the service electrical panel in the home to return to the source, the utility transformer. As poor as the earth is for use as a conductor in this case it still is better than nothing.

See pages 2-5 and 2-6.
http://www.hvacovervoltage.com/info/EffectsOfOvervoltage.pdf

I would suggest you phone call around electrical contractors in your area and ask them for their opinions for repairing the grounding electrode system for the electrical service of your home. Grounding electrode is just a fancy word for the thing used to connect the ground wire from the electrical service neutral/bar to earth. Example a ground rod or the domestic metallic incoming water pipe is a grounding electrode. Even if the water pipe is used, per current NEC Code it will need to be supplemented by at least one outside driven ground rod. For your area more than one ground rod may be required.
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Same in my area, Jea48, no need to notify the city. The electrician removed the old ground wire from the water pipe, drilled and installed a copper grounding rod and that was it.
I think of this as electrical service maintenance to my property.

Jea48, I will eventually hire a different electrician and hopefully get a different take on whether I have an earth ground or not, and what it will take to get one installed if I don't have one. The electrician I just used came with A-rated feedback via AngiesList members, but I'm questioning if he was correct in his assessment of my system and the process for adding an earth ground if needed.

The electrician I just used came with A-rated feedback via AngiesList

He may be very good at what he does, but apparently part of what he does is separate the mark...I mean customer...from his hard-earned $$. Most of us, myself included, have no idea what the difference is between an earth ground and a safety ground, don't really want to learn, and are very happy (when it gets more technical than replacing a receptacle), that god invented electricians!