Re: Whole house surge suppressors

From: volts500 (volts500_at_tampabay.rr.com)
Date: 07/06/04 

Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2004 01:40:09 GMT

"Rich Grise" <null@example.net> wrote in message
news:4695651.F1RhZnGit9@entheos.thunderbird.ops.dsl-verizon.net...
> on Monday 05 July 2004 10:18 am, SQLit wrote:
>
> >
> > "Flea Ridden" <flea@flea.ridden> wrote in message
> > news:40E977E8.D57B6A19@flea.ridden...
> >> This is a most informative article, and it echoes what w_tom says:
> >> http://www.ecmweb.com/mag/electric_hit_grounding_home/
> >>
> >> So when I call an arbitrary electrician to ask for a grounding survey,
> >> how do I know he's telling me the truth?
> > . The most important thing here is the guy running the meter. It takes a
> > fair
> > amount of experience to understand what the readings mean. Try to
achieve
> > less than 5 ohms during your driest times. You can always add more
ground
> > rods to the electrical service to get the readings lower. I once had to
> > add 2-40' long chemical ground rods to a service to get it to 2 ohms.
> > These must be installed per the local and national codes.
>
> For some reason, this reminds me of an article I read in I think Popular
> Electronics last millennium, about making a ground rod, arbitrarily
> deep, with copper pipe and your garden hose. You solder a hose fitting
> on one end of the pipe, and attach the hose. Stand it up with the
> open end on the ground, and turn the water on. The water coming out
> the pipe digs through the dirt, and unless there's big rocks, it
> supposedly goes in pretty easily. And they said, if 10' isn't enough,
> you can just solder another pipe on top of that one, move the hose
> fitting, and continue, etc.
>
> Anybody ever actually done that, or heard of it being done?
> --
> Cheers!
> Rich

I hope not. It's Mickey Mouse. That's the kind of misinformation about
power wiring that one can expect from an electronics magazine. Grounds rods
need to be _driven_ so that they are in close, tight contact with the soil.
Blasting one in with a water hose would result in a very bad ground because
the soil around it would be very loose. If pounding one in with a sledge
hammer is too much work, rent a rotory hammer, set it to the hammer mode and
have at it (some require an adapter). Driving ground rods deeper (20 ft.)
results in a better ground. That's what threaded ground rods are for.

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