Installing an Earthing Rod

[ebee]

I don't really see what my earth rod will ever do? It, I suppose, is required so in a power cut, my RCD will still work, but the RCD sockets, are other end of house to the earth rod, it does seem OTT for 4 sockets and on FCU.

It is in real terms, a tick the box exercise, the chance that my freezers will become faulty just when we have a rare power cut seems very slim.

Not really the way I see it Eric - if you have an earth rod or not then an RCD protects agains "Earth Faults" by comparing the balance of Line(s) to N - which effectively will be some travel to earth somewhere, all the rod etc will do is to keep earthed or bonded things pretty much at the potential of the local earth of surrounds even if that local earth is a bit away from the gen mass of the earth reference of the rest of the planet.

 

[ericmark]

For an RCD to work, there must be a path for the current other than the lives (line and neutral) that path is earth, which is connected to neutral before the RCD.

If you were to take either of the wired from a shaver socket and connect it to earth the RCD supplying that shaver socket would not trip. As a shaver socket is an IT supply and has no earth.

So in the main, a generator/transformer, supplying a single item, does not really need an earth, it is likely safer not to have one, but when supplying multi-items, then we need to earth.

I have worked on a TBM with a three-phase IT supply, and it was not nice, walked around with a neon screwdriver checking any metal before touching, it seemed one phase would always connect to earth, and so you were never sure what was live, it could be you, and if you touched something earthed you would get a shock.

Made by Robin, I think a USA firm, and I was glad when the job closed.

 

[ebee]

Yes you need to have a N connected to E for it to actually be considered N otherwise its just floating, like as you correctly say, in the bathroom, you`d never get a shock because the is no earth reference cooming out of the bathroom socket.
Probably wrong to refer to them as Lives I think or phases.
I suppose you`d stick both (in single phase) as "Live" because normally they can be current carrying but none of them can be currect carrying in respect to earth, an RCD would not work on a bathroom socket unless via fault or design one the conductors becomes connected to earth.

and yes it is safer to have one transformer running one piece of equipment and no earth involved, if we could absolutely rely on that.

But one may become connected by accident therefore we connect one deliberately and protect with that in mind which has now become the safer option.

If we run appliances on TN systems using only Line and N (or Phase and N) then they will still be "Live" in respect to Earth even if there is no Earth connection to that appliance.
Any current finding its way back to E by any method will trip an RCD of sufficient sensitivity, it does not matter what route that it took but just that it took it.

 

[Munroast]

when the mains leaves my house - where would be its first proper earth likely to be
?

 

[morqthana]

Apparently if you have a mains pressure water hose that can attach to say some 12mm copper pipe (tube) then it can be helpful to water drill apparently, never tried it though, very few earth rods installed by me, I do tend to fit two at two lengths apart and then teste them seperately then join them together with a bit of 10.0 earthwire, If required I have made some conrete earth pits to suit unless I have a bought one.
Around here about 60 ohms each rod is usually achieveable and one timeonly I had to drive rods in quite diagonally not horizontally to get depth for contact before hitting hard bedrock (Malham N Yorks) .

I do have two lengths of screwable rods and a couple of couplers but never needed to use them.

Thanks. I was beginning to wonder if I'd imagined it.

 

[morqthana]

when the mains leaves my house - where would be its first proper earth likely to be
?

Where the last one before it enters your house is.

 

[morqthana]

when the mains leaves my house - where would be its first proper earth likely to be
?

No but seriously - what do you mean by "proper earth", and what type of supply do you have?

 

[securespark]

OK everyone, don't get your panties in knot. I saw a video of it being done, and I was curious, that's all.

As far as I can tell, no one got their "panties in knot".

They just said it was a silly idea.

Jetting the mud out of length of conduit? Therein lies my first issue. The OD of the conduit has to be bigger than the rod. There's my second issue. Third, getting the conduit out.

You'd just hammer the rod into the ground. If you needed any assistance at all, you'd drill a starter hole.

If indeed you saw a video of it being done the way you suggest, I would say it was very much an amateur effort.

It would be good to see it, if you could post the link here.

 

[Munroast]

what are earth rods made out of ? I was given one yesterday, at a glance it looks like copper, but its very heavy and strongly attracted to magnets ! LOL

and when i come to think of it, a copper rod is hardly hammerable into hard ground - so are they just steel ? or have i just been given a dodgy one ?

 

[ebee]

Yes it would be "interesting" to see it in real life.
Bear in mind that you tube etc has some clips that are ,shall we say questionable?
Not just in an April Fools way or to explain an illusion conjouring trick etc but apparently put forward as serious - perpetual motion machines abundant, two battery (cell) tops to a cylinder yet nothing connectind either bottom/sides of can, tricks with magnets etc etc etc, it easily missleads if not stated as a false/candid camera type spoof at the end.
So is the hosepipe trick genuine under the right conditions? I do not know.

(since the advent of so-called AI its even more difficult to see truth easily!)

I sent someone I know a clip I made on youtube to demonstrate to a Grandson an Electric Genorator, three coils fashioned from old relays, three sets of magnets rotating in a circle and four cables as in N, L1,L2 and L3 and proof using back to back LED sets that each N to Lx combination and each Lx to Lx combination produced some detectable voltage, jus as a three phase genorator could do.

I explained that in this example is was a discarded microwave turntable motor to give motion but any source of motion such as wind, steam, gas, squirrel in a cage etc etc could supply the the power to turn it.

The guy I should it to was convinced I had made a perpetual motion machine and it took some convincing that I was merely demonstrating a well known everyday principle which is all I had set out to do.

 

[ebee]

what are earth rods made out of ? I was given one yesterday, at a glance it looks like copper, but its very heavy and strongly attracted to magnets ! LOL

and when i come to think of it, a copper rod is hardly hammerable into hard ground - so are they just steel ? or have i just been given a dodgy one ?

often steel copper plated.

 

[Munroast]

often steel copper plated.

good - i thought it was kosher but also thought i should double check in case it was some knock off

 

[SUNRAY]

Some designed to be screwed together to get deep penetration used to be a steel inner and copper outer (much thicker than copper plated). I was always dubious about the join which was basically a reduced diameter of the steel and threaded to screw into the steel hole in the lower section. My experience of hammering on a nut and bolt -basically the same thing as the earth rods - is it loosens them.