Utilizing a CHEM-Ground Based grounding rod system

I hired a pro to do a grid of six 8' ground rods in my yard. More ground than a four story commercial building. It did not take that long to drive and little digging. Just for the trench to weld the cable below-grade. You need a pipe- based rod driver at a minimum, and somebody to drive the rods for you and weld up the grid in a series of trenches. I would not want to tackle this project myself.

Before all the UK Naimites get into this, please be aware that the method of earthing in UK homes built since 1970's does not require an earth rod.

PME (Protective Multiple Earth) or TN-C-S per IEE standards cover this.
With PME only two wires enter the property - live and neutral - and the earth circuit connects to the neutral there.
Further upstream in the distribution system the earth and neutral wires are connected together directly at various intervals and to the local substation transformer earthed neutral.

The design intent of this is the earth (SAFETY) bonding for your property will remain unaffected in the event of an earth fault elsewhere in the local distribution system.

By adding an earth rod to your property, and in the event of an earth/neutral failure on the distribution system, your earth rod, its connecting wire & your property could be the earth/neutral route for the whole neighbourhood.

CONSULT A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN

earth rod may still be required on an SNE system if you are fed from over head lines. A proper earth mat is 2 rods connected to eachother then driven into ground with a kangol, then each rod connected by .1 bare copper or 70mm bare copper then all connected to a common earth point connected to mains earth if you hae SNE. Wates of time and money if you have PME.

Chem ground rod and bits to arrive tomorrow.
Need to get about three foot of Cardas solder. Home depot has #4/19 strand copper for the ground(Will match the pig tail #4). Need to rent a ditch witch and a torch for the soldering.
Everything else is just time consuming.

Pics anyone?

Marc

have you checked to see if you have PME or SNE. Any earthing system you install will basically be connected to the LV network. Any fault current could go through your earth system if it is PME. IF it did happen i would pretty much say you will fry every electrical appliance in your house.

quote:

Originally posted by ray davis:
have you checked to see if you have PME or SNE. Any earthing system you install will basically be connected to the LV network. Any fault current could go through your earth system if it is PME. IF it did happen i would pretty much say you will fry every electrical appliance in your house.

Ray-
If you are asking me?
I live in the states. We are not connected in series going back to the mains generator. We have individual grounds for our homes. The Equitech has it's own ground(separate from the house). The main step down outside the house has a ground for it's casing. Nothing more.
To be installed Nov. 5th....
Welder sorted.#4 sorted.Friend from the U.K. coming in to help dig the grave. Solid copper lug sorted. Gaf sorted.
Still need to go to the rental place down the street to inquire about a trench digger.

Marc

ah right gotcha. Be interseting to know how it all goes. Any pics coming Marc ?

I can't post pics in padded cell. Can you?
Marc

quote:

Originally posted by Marc Newman:
I can't post pics in padded cell. Can you?
Marc

A bit more info on why I chose this solution.

Rod electrodes

The most common and well understood option, sometimes known as 'stakes' or 'vertical rods'. These can be driven from 1m to 5m deep (soil dependent).

Deep electrodes of upto 30mtrs deep need a drilling rig to pre-drill out the soil, then the electrodes are placed in the borehole and backfilled/grouted up with bentonite or similar highly conductive media.

The upside to these is that they are relatively cheap to buy and install. The downside, is that they only have a small contact surface area and rely on the moisture content for their connection.

Strip electrodes

Strip electrodes can take the form of burying copper tape (25mm x 3mm, 50mm x 6mm, etc.) either radially from one point or any no. of configurations.

This too can be a relatively cheap means of getting an earth in good soil conditions.

Plate electrodes

A slightly more expensive option. These consist of 600mm x 600mm solid copper plates increasing the contact area substantially. They can be deployed vertically or horizontally if you've only got a shallow top soil to work with.

The benefit of plates is that one plate can replace upto 4-6 standard rods, therefore, you can keep the space required for deployment down; plus you only need to allow for some very simple trenching.

The drawback is that plates still rely heavily on moisture content.

Chem-rod™

Sometimes known as Chemically Activated Ground/earth Electrodes (CAGE). This solution has a very large contact area with the earth (critical cyclinder).

In addition, the chem-rod™ chemically 'conditions' the surrounding soil in contact with the unit, so that if the moisture drops off it still has the best possible contact via the natural electrolytes/minerals it uses.

Typically, one chem-rod™ can replace up to 10 standard rods, which makes it the preferred choice in difficult ground conditions or where there isn't a lot of space for deployment.


The following is a company that provides commercial services within the U.K.. This includes chem grounds.

http://www.ees-group.co.uk/Default.aspx

hi Marc, our earthing system is different here we have as you know PME and SNE and also PMB for steel erected buildings. That site has some interesting points especaillly about people going to nick copper in sub-stations. Then they find out its live bare conductors from 11k right the way up to 132kv. We have bulletins at work about these issues, like the pikeys that thought a sub was dead and then commenced to saw through the 11kv. The sub was not humming and that means nothing. Victim was dumped at an A&E where his burns were so bad he died later.

Nice, one less thieving b@#tard

Our home depot was not up to price per copper. Folks were coming in-buying as much wire as possible and selling it as scrap. Making a good buck!
Regards,
Marc

UK copper prices are sky high last time i saw was around £3500 per ton, thats clean bright copper.