Buffalo grounding and bonding, the half nobody sees
Grounding does nothing at all until the day something goes wrong, and then it does everything. That is exactly why it gets neglected: an installation with no working earth path behaves normally for years.
Grounding and bonding gives a fault somewhere to go
When a live conductor touches something it should not, the ground path gives that current a route back that trips the protection instead of routing it through whoever is holding the appliance.
Bonding is the related idea: metal parts that could become live are tied together so they cannot sit at different voltages. Water pipes, gas lines and structural metal are the usual candidates, and the connections are unglamorous and easy to leave out. A panel inspection is where most of them get checked.
None of this shows up in daily use, which is why it is a standing item in an electrical safety inspection rather than something people call about. It is also why a pre purchase inspection includes it: an ungrounded installation looks completely normal to a buyer.
Fresh install
How it runs
A grounding and bonding check in Buffalo, four steps
Start at the service
Where the ground starts and how it is connected. Everything downstream depends on this being right.
Test continuity, do not assume
A conductor that is present is not the same as a path that works. Testing is the only way to know.
Check the separations
Neutrals and grounds must be joined at the main and separated in any subpanel. It is a frequent and consequential mistake.
Correct and document
Put right, then written up, because this is the sort of finding an insurer or a buyer will ask about.
What we find
Three grounding and bonding faults we see repeatedly
A path that was never continuous is the most common: a ground conductor connected at one end and not the other, or interrupted where a circuit was extended years later. Continuity testing finds it in minutes and nothing else does.
Neutrals and grounds bonded together in a subpanel is the second. They must be separated there and joined only at the main, and getting it wrong is one of the most frequent findings in work done without inspection. Subpanel installation sets out why the arrangement differs from the main panel.
Where any of these turn up, correcting them is straightforward and it is documented, which matters if the work formed part of a code correction or is going to be shown to an insurer alongside a certificate of inspection.
You would not, and that is the problem. An installation with no working earth path behaves completely normally until the day something faults. Only testing finds it.
Because they are joined once, at the main. Joining them again downstream puts current on the ground path in normal use, which is exactly what it is not for.
It can. The bonding jumper often goes out with the old metal pipe, and the protection that depended on it disappears without anyone noticing.
No. A three-prong outlet can be fitted to a two-wire circuit with nothing behind the third pin. Testing tells you; the outlet face does not.
Usually far less than people expect, because it is often one connection rather than rewiring. We tell you which before quoting.
It protects people, which is the important part, and it is the accepted answer where no ground exists. It does not protect equipment, and the outlet has to be labelled so the next person knows.
