Electrical Ground Rods and the Joys of Life

[AV8R62]

You can usualy drive an 8' ground rod all the way with no tools
if you have a bucket of water,
make a small impression with the heel of your boot
and fill it with water,
push the rod in as far as you can and work it up and down.
add water as needed and before you know it it will be all the way down. sometimes you might have to pull it up 3 feet or so to make the rod slick again and push it back down.
a day later when the hole has settled you cannot pull it out and the top is not mushroomed.
I have installed many ground rods this way.

 

[Inspector507]

Martin,
They don't HAVE to be dead vertical. If bedrock is encountered, the rod can be pulled out (or use another one) and drive it at 45° angle.

 

[woodlot]

How about three six foot rods instead of 2 eight footers? That would make 18 linear feet of ground contact vs. 16.

 

[Soundguy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Need to be a little careful using a pipe sleeve )</font>

I'm not sure how you would do this.. .. since the pipe sleave stays on the rod.. and then you beat on it with a sledge hammer. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I think you are thinking about a t-post driver... that moves up and down..

Soundguy

 

[BXRICK]

Slightly off-topic, but being from northeastern Massachusetts, the idea that you MIGHT have hit a rock 7' down is kinda amusing. Around here, it's unusual NOT to hit a rock after 7 feet. Driving posts that deep is mostly a matter of luck.

 

[jjcc246]

i use a 1/2" or bigger hammer drill. just chuck it up and sqeeze the trigger. goes in smooth and fast.

 

[wushaw]

I agree with it not having to be vertical even the electric company that put my transformer in just layed the grounding rod in the same trench that the feed cable is in and bent it at a 90 deg so just enough was sticking out of the ground to attach the ground wire.
The trench was 3ft deep.

 

[gizmo]

Electrical Engineer here. Don't sweat the small stuff. 7' is plenty and just as ineffective as 8'. Cut it off and move on.

 

[Bird]

Chris, I think I've seen all the suggestions made here. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif When I had a new pole and electric meter installed for my parents, the guy who did it was "moonlighting"; his regular job was with the electric company. He used the trick mentioned with the water in the hole and working the rod up and down, gradually adding more water. And when we had a "wireless cable" TV antenna installed, they drove the ground rod at an angle, such an angle, in fact, that the bottom end of the rod was no more than a foot under ground. And when I helped a brother-in-law install a new meter base for new service to a new mobile home, we got the rod about 6.5' in the ground and hit something very solid; presumably a big rock and it would not go any farther, even with a sledge hammer, so we cut it off.

 

[rambler]

The technical point of having it deep into the ground, rather than laying sideways a foot deep, is you are much more likely to have the bottom in ground water or at least damp ground. A very shallow instalation, even useing the 3 shorter rods as someone mentioned, bypasses this and might not be as good a ground in drier soils. No issue to me, just mentioning it.

I live in clay, and there is no way to sink a ground rod without tools. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif I have done enough tile probing to 4 feet with the handled probe, the bulb on the prob, & a bucket of water - it is hard work.

The electricians that redide the 10 buildings here at the farm used a T-post driver.

--->Paul