Electric question: What is this??

[Clarence Martin]

Replacing the old cast iron drain pipe. Found this wire right next to the cast iron pipe. What is it and if it is a ground wire, what could it be grounding ? Never noticed it before.

[Art Mann]

It is indeed a ground wire. There is no way of knowing what it is grounding but I would guess it is grounding an old style fuse box.

[Pat Barry]

It is supposed to be tied to the cold water pipe to provide a ground reference. Hard to tell where it is headed to. Normally you don't need to ground a toilet.

[Von Bickley]

It is just a ground wire and nothing to worry about. Many years ago when I was wiring houses, we had to drop a ground wire from the panel to the water line. At that time, all the water lines in our area were copper. We stopped doing this when all the plumbers in our area quit using copper and went to CPVC water lines.

[Stephen Musial]

Do you have GFCIs in the bathroom? Plug in a three light tester and see if everything is wired correctly. Then disconnect that ground wire and see what happens.

[Tom M King]

I didn't think there were any galvanized water lines left anywhere that would still be flowing water.

[Rick Potter]

I think Stephen has it right. A lot of bathrooms had GROUNDED plugs added years ago, and it was common around here to ground just the bathroom and the washer/dryer plug in the 50's.

Rick P.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I didn't think there were any galvanized water lines left anywhere that would still be flowing water.

Nearly 50% of the houses I've looked at built prior to WWII still have galvanized water lines in them somewhere.
Two of the five houses we own still have some galvanized drain pipe in them somewhere.

A lot of grounding wires from second and third floors followed the stack down to the basement because it was an easy straight run that required very little tear out.
You just went up in the attic and dropped the wire straight down.
I see that a lot in older houses where grounded outlets have been added on upper floors.

[Rick Moyer]

Are we sure that's a wire and not a copper water tap like would go to a refrigerator water dispenser?
Hard to see from the picture.

[Clarence Martin]

Runs up from the basement along the old drain pipe straight into the Attic. From there , I don't k now where it goes.

[Tom Stenzel]

If it's going into the attic (assuming there's no plumbing or electrical up there) could it have been run for an ham antenna? Maybe a less than good idea grounding for a lightning rod?

But it's most likely a ground for an outlet that needed it. The going up into the attic was likely for convenience in routing. In other words a ruse just to confuse you ;-)

-Tom