Barn Wiring Question

[BoylermanCT]

I spoke with the inspector today. Based on the existing 10 gauge 3 wire plus ground 220 volt line out to the barn, he approved a sub-panel as long as it has a master breaker to act as a disconnect. He recommended we add a ground in the barn, although it is not required since there is already a ground coming from the house. So based on that, I picked up a 12 breaker panel from Home Depot for $65 with the master breaker included. Added 4 20 amp and 4 15 amp breakers. Gives me 4 more for future expansion. Bought two 8' copper ground rods and 16' of 6 gauge bare copper wire. We can't drive them vertically into the ground as the barn sits on ledge 4' down. So he said we could bury it 12" down and lay the rods horizontally, and keep the rods 6' apart. We already have trenching dug for water, drainage and future electrical, so we will add the ground rods to a section of the trench. Trench is 16" wide and 4' deep. Hoping to get all the underground utilities complete this weekend and bring in 6" of sand in preparation for the concrete floor.

 

[MossRoad]

That sounds very similar to what we did in our garage, ground rods and all. Good luck! :thumbsup:

 

[s219]

That sounds perfect to me. And be lucky you don't have to drive the rods in -- I have plenty of funny stories from doing that. Burying them horizontally is good.

 

[PILOON]

That sounds perfect to me. And be lucky you don't have to drive the rods in -- I have plenty of funny stories from doing that. Burying them horizontally is good.

Not always, the former house on this site burned due to lightening and poor grounding.
They had simply slid the one rod under moss that was atop solid bed rock.
Moss was very dry so a poor conductor hence bad ground.
Code here calls for 2 steel plates when rods are not possible.

When I built I used a Kango to drive my 2 rods in full length. I could actually feel them bending their way around hidden rocks. Also my soil is always humid so a good ground.

 

[MossRoad]

When I worked at the airport, I had to drive about a hundred ground rods on the ramp for refueling grounding. Fortunately, my vehicle mechanic had the brains to hook an air hose to the air brake system on one of the fuel trucks and we used an air chisel with a cupped head and were able to drive the rods in at the intersecting corners of the concrete after chiseling out a small hole with a star bit. Took us a good day to do it.