A new way to assure that the ground rod is set deep enough

[William J. Decker]

Saw this in a phased inspection. No need to actually "drive" the ground rod, just "backfill" around it.

Comments?

[Marc D. Shunk]

If the home is served by underground metallic water piping, I wouldn't worry about the status of the soil surrounding the rod. The rod sucks as an electrode anyhow.

[Thomas H. Dietrich]

Originally Posted by Marc D. Shunk

The rod sucks as an electrode anyhow.

La La La La La La ... ... ...

tom <covering ears, closed eyes, shaking head>

[William J. Decker]

Originally Posted by Marc D. Shunk

If the home is served by underground metallic water piping, I wouldn't worry about the status of the soil surrounding the rod. The rod sucks as an electrode anyhow.

Sorry I didn't fully explain. This house was just back filled, about 20 minutes before the picture. No sewer or water supply as of yet.

Not that this doesn't mean that the water supply pipe will not be connected, but it is just plain wrong, this way.

Like they are going through all the "right moves", but without a friggin' clue of what it all means.

[Marc D. Shunk]

Originally Posted by wdecker

Like they are going through all the "right moves", but without a friggin' clue of what it all means.

What do you think it all means?

A rod electrode is among the biggest wastes of time there is. What it's designed to do, few rod electrode(s) installations meet the requirements. Drive that rod into undisturbed soil and you probably didn't enhance the installation enough to matter.

[Brian E. Kelly]

No UFER ground Will?

[Richard L. Bennett]

Will did not you know about the new standard-----

The rod can not be covered up so the inspector can read all the UL - NEC etc crap that is on the top

And trust me they treated the fill with conductive enhancers so everything will be ok


Here is one for all of you

What would be an out of spec current on a ground rod?? It is so easy to check. Am I the only one doing it??

Could it be too high or too low and what would be the cause??

Is this something that an HI should even care about

Should we check to see if the ground rod is labled if we do not have to dig or kill trees to get to it.

Should we pull on the ground wire to even see if it is hooked to anything

Or we just be pricks since many think it is not needed anyway

Remember we are not code people and what harm is a bad ground -- Will we ever get called on a ground problem that we did not check???


rlb

[Speedy Petey]

Originally Posted by rbennett

Remember we are not code people and what harm is a bad ground -- Will we ever get called on a ground problem that we did not check???

I have to chime in here.

Please describe what problems a "bad ground", as related to a ground rod, would be?
What "harm" are you referring to?

[Greg Fretwell]

Pete, I know how a "bad ground" showed up at my house. It knocked the snot out of anyone who touched the stove when barefoot on the terazzo floor. (the night I moved in). Replacing the corroded clamp on the "useless" ground rod fixed it. Now I am grounded six ways from Sunday but simply fixing that old rod made the most "shocking" problem go away.

[Speedy Petey]

Greg, I hold your opinion in high regard, believe that. I just find it hard to believe that a rod stuck in the earth cured a case fault on an applaince. How is this possible?
It is documented that a ground rod does NOT reduce touch potential nor does it assist in clearing a fault.
There HAS to be more to it.

[Marc D. Shunk]

Originally Posted by Greg Fretwell

Pete, I know how a "bad ground" showed up at my house. It knocked the snot out of anyone who touched the stove when barefoot on the terazzo floor. (the night I moved in). Replacing the corroded clamp on the "useless" ground rod fixed it. Now I am grounded six ways from Sunday but simply fixing that old rod made the most "shocking" problem go away.

Okay, brother, you're gonna have to explain that one, unless the laws of physics have been changed by the state of Florida. Fixing the corroded clamp may have made the issue less, but this is problem related to 3-wire supplied ranges and dryers in general, and fixing the rod clamp is not the cure. When you did that, you made your terazzo a parallel neutral path.

The grounding electrode serves two purposes... to give a lightning strike an easier path to the earth so it'll blow up less stuff in the house, and to give a high voltage spike (like from a downed line or messed up transformer) a path to the earth (and hopefully back the to utility system) and keep some of it out of your house. It does "okay" on both of these, but still not very good. A municipal water bond is superior to the rod electrode, I must say. The ground rod itself -sucks- at this duty, as one would normally find them installed in dwellings. Towers, naturally, are earthed with driven electrodes. These tower grounding systems are highly engineered and performance tested out the wazoo. For a dwelling, you drive a couple and hope for the best. Since I've actually done ground rod testing, my qualified opinion is that it doesn't matter for a hill of beans whether a person actually drove that rod or backfilled around it. Matter of fact, the code specifically permits you to lay a rod horizontally if certain conditions are met and fill over top of it.

[Richard L. Bennett]

SP

DC ground - AC ground at 60 hz - RF ground - earth ground all different and cause different problems

Ground current is like water pressure it can be too high or too low

Even 8ft of conductor in bad dirt serves a purpose

Look at it like an antenna which is very much needed for a TV but this one in in the ground that sends and RECIEVES

So men what does your clamp on amp meter show on the ground wire on your house. Can you measure current less than an amp?

Remember the better the ground the higher the current

rlb

[Richard L. Bennett]

Marc

Hooking up the wire made the floor and the stove common

We have no way of being sure why they were not

Wonder if the ground rod was bonded to the rebar in the floor if so the floor would be like standing on a conductive plate esp with a little dirt and water

Man that could smart when one is not quite awake in the morning

rlb

[Michael D. Thomas]

Pulling on the clamp/rod is NOT a good idea:

http://ecmweb.com/grounding/electric...uth_grounding/

[Mike Whitt]

Originally Posted by rbennett

Marc

Hooking up the wire made the floor and the stove common

We have no way of being sure why they were not

Wonder if the ground rod was bonded to the rebar in the floor if so the floor would be like standing on a conductive plate esp with a little dirt and water

Man that could smart when one is not quite awake in the morning

rlb

Not if the grounded Neutral is installed correctly