Please help! I am a 27yr old new home owner of 2 years living in Alabama and my water pipes froze the other day, so after the whole hair dryer thaw out time, thinking I'd done enough research, I went and bought foam pipe insulation and installed it. When I was down there I was covering the part where they come out of the ground (I was told that is where they are most likely to freeze) and I accidentally removed- what I've now learned (from explaining what it looked like to my father)--to be my ground wire grounding my entire house. I have 2 main water lines coming out of the ground in my full unfinished basement for 2 separate units in the house. There were 2 or 4 bracket things on the pipes coming out of the ground with two old metal bars running parallel to each other connecting the 2 pipes (each about 1 foot long and a smaller than the thickness of a pencil). They were old and corroded so they seemed pointless to me. My house was built in 1910 and has had some very random, shoddy remodeling done. (It is a terrible money pit that I have learned more than I EVER wanted to know about houses... ) So I figured it was old nonused extra wire. It was not connected to my breaker box or anything-is it supposed to be? My father told me to just put it back how it was, but with all that has gone wrong with this place I am skeptical and want to be sure it really is keeping my old crappy house grounded.. I've been trying to find info all over the internet and it keeps leading me back to this website so I joined and really need help on this issue.Thanks.

I am with dad, put it back the way it was but then track the ground back to the panel. If it never reaches the panel splice a new wire same gauge to the end, when you get tat wire to the panel come back to us for the last detail