Pool Equipotential Bonding: Inspection Records Before Concealment

Covering the bonding before inspection turns a missed hold into rework. Before steel is encased or a deck is placed over the perimeter, ask the licensed electrician and the inspector which edition and approved details apply, and file their release on the sheet below.

A pool equipotential bonding grid is not a layout this site can hand you. Equipotential bonding pool requirements are the code edition and amendments the authority having jurisdiction has adopted, plus the plan revision the inspector will look at. Grounding, equipotential bonding, and GFCI protection do different jobs, and a product sheet written to the 2014 code does not decide a permit being issued now. Orlando’s residential pool checklist, read on 12 October 2026, still names the 2020 National Electrical Code. Write the answer your inspector gives, and keep the hold records before the work is concealed.

Fielder Pools is an independent planning resource. We do not design electrical systems or sign inspections. The construction stages guide remains the overview of the build. This page is only the record sheet.

Swipe or scroll sideways to read every column.

The handoff sheet

Copy these tables into the project file, or print this page. Leave a cell blank until the named person fills it. Do not complete a row from a catalog, a forum, or another city’s checklist. The figure at the top of the page is the same five-step record. It is not a bonding layout, and it shows no conductor size, grid spacing, or deck depth.

Code, edition, and amendments

Plan revision

Orlando’s checklist, as one city’s example, asks for a revision request that describes the change, names the file or sheet, and clouds the revision on the plans. Use your own city’s form if it has one. The bonding inspection has to match a named revision, not an earlier file that happens to be in the same folder.

Component connections

These rows are prompts. Cross out any component the approved plans do not include, and add a row for each component they do. The table is not a parts list to buy or install.

The pool equipotential bonding conductor connection point is the mark on that approved sheet: which component, which sheet, who made it, and whether the inspector could still see it. A photograph of a fitting from a catalog is not that mark.

Inspection holds

Responsible reviewer

Takeaway: A filled sheet names the edition, the revision, the connections, the holds, and the reviewer. An empty cell means that part is not ready to hide.

Grounding, bonding, and GFCI do different jobs

The words come from different documents, and they should stay in different rows.

Grounding. OSHA’s electrical definitions in 29 CFR 1910.399, read on the eCFR on 12 October 2026, define a ground as a conducting connection, intentional or accidental, between an electric circuit or equipment and the earth, or a conducting body that serves in place of the earth. Those definitions apply to OSHA’s workplace electrical rules. They are not a pool-deck design. They do answer the narrower question of what “ground” means when someone uses the word for a connection toward earth.

Equipotential bonding. The same OSHA section defines bonding as the permanent joining of metallic parts to form an electrically conductive path that can carry the current likely to be imposed. Pool bonding has a further, stated job in the 2023 amendment described below: reducing voltage gradients in the pool area. Joining metal, and reducing voltage differences around a pool, are related. Neither sentence is a drawing.

GFCI. A ground-fault circuit-interrupter, in that OSHA definition, is a personnel-protection device that de-energizes a circuit when a current to ground exceeds a predetermined value that is still below the trip point of the overcurrent device. It watches a circuit. It does not bond a deck to a shell, and a device in a panel is not the inspection of steel that is about to be covered.

A GFCI result does not close the bonding row. A bond between two metal parts does not prove the perimeter was inspected. A grounding electrode is not the equipotential bonding record. Ask which of the three the permit is asking about, and use the matching row.

Takeaway: Keep three lines. Do not let one approval stand in for the other two.

The edition is a project fact

NFPA’s development page for NFPA 70, checked 12 October 2026, identifies 2026 as the current edition year. This guide did not review the text of that edition. A year on NFPA’s page is not the year on your permit.

On 21 March 2023 the NFPA Standards Council issued Tentative Interim Amendment 23-9, log 1687, to the 2023 National Electrical Code, with an effective date of 10 April 2023. The issued text revises the definition of “pool” and section 680.26 on equipotential bonding. Its performance language says that bonding is to reduce voltage gradients in the pool area, and that it applies whether or not the pool has electrical equipment of its own. An informational note says some voltage gradients start outside the premises wiring and are outside the NEC’s scope. The amendment does not say that every shock source is gone.

Issuing the amendment does not mean a city has adopted it. Ask whether the permit is built to the 2023 edition, to that amendment, to an older edition, or to a later one, and write the answer in the inspector’s words.

Orlando is one dated example of an older adopted text. The city’s residential swimming pool and spa checklist, read 12 October 2026, identifies NFPA 70, 2020 edition, Article 680, as the electrical code for those permits. It calls for separate building and electrical permits. It says the page is a guide and may not list every requirement for approval. Its recommended sequence for a typical residential pool includes #112, electrical pool steel grounding, and #341, electrical pool deck bonding. Orlando’s own lines for those two holds include a wire size and a distance from the pool wall. Those figures stay on Orlando’s checklist. They are not repeated here, and they are not a design for any other city.

A Harger line card, retrieved 12 October 2026, says the company provides pool grounding and bonding products that meet NEC 2014 Article 680.26. That is a 2014 product catalog. It is not the installation standard for a pool being permitted now, and it is not evidence that a 2014 arrangement will pass inspection.

Service Industry News reported on 14 August 2025 that specialists disagreed about a June 2025 industry study of bonding methods. A reported disagreement is not a copper-ring design and not a grid design. It is a reason to record the edition and the approved details your inspector will enforce, instead of choosing a method from an article.

Takeaway: The requirement is the edition and the amendments the inspector names. Do not promote a 2014 catalog, a 2023 amendment, or a 2026 edition year into your city’s rule.

Holds come before the cover goes on

The record is weak once the work is hidden, unless the inspector agrees to some other acceptance. Ask which holds must pass while the steel is still visible, and which must pass before the deck is placed. Use the inspector’s names in the hold table. Orlando’s #112 and #341 are examples of how one city labels those moments. Your city may use different names, a different order, or extra holds.

Pool equipotential bonding testing, when the inspector requires it, is one of those holds. Ask what will be tested, who may perform or witness it, and which result must be on file before cover. This page does not give a voltage limit, a meter procedure, or a pass mark.

If the shell or the deck is already in place and the release is missing, stop and ask the building department what they will accept. Opening finished work, or accepting it another way, is their call.

The pool construction process is the stage sequence around this hold. The equipment pad layout is where equipment location is set aside. Neither page replaces this sheet.

Takeaway: Cover the work after the named release, not when the crew is ready to pour.

What this sheet does not do

It does not authorize electrical work, choose a bonding method, or size a conductor. It does not say that a completed sheet removes electric-shock risk. The 2023 amendment’s note, described above, says some voltage gradients are outside the NEC. A filled checklist shows only that the project recorded the edition, the revision, the connections, the holds, and the reviewer.

The issued 2023 definition of “pool” excludes water used as part of an industrial process, and lakes, lagoons, surf parks, and similar bodies, and it points those to Article 682. If that is the project, ask which article applies. Do not force it onto this residential sheet.

Method and sources

Checked 12 October 2026 against the NFPA Standards Council decision and the text of TIA 23-9, NFPA’s NFPA 70 development page for the current edition year only, the City of Orlando residential pool checklist, the Harger line card labeled for NEC 2014, and the OSHA definitions in 29 CFR 1910.399. The Service Industry News report was read from the 11 October 2026 retrieval of the 14 August 2025 article. City pages are examples. A product sheet is not code. The OSHA definitions explain the words inside that workplace subpart. They do not design a pool.

The diagrams are original schematics of the handoff, the three functions, the connection record, and the inspection holds. They contain no installation dimensions.

Keep the filled sheet with the construction stages guide and the rest of the project file on the pool construction hub. If the plans change, ask which revision the bonding inspection has to match before anything is covered.