Home Electrical Grounding

 I live in Houston, Texas, where home foundation shifting is common.

My house had to be re-leveled (raised), now the ground wire that comes
out of the house cannot reach the ground steel rod. Leaving my house
un-grounded!!!

My understanding is that these rods are 8 feet long, which has made it
quite difficult to pull the rod out, enough to where the wire can
reach it again.

All suggestions welcome.

  aridav1@yahoo.com wrote in news:1192211352.731344.100490
@v29g2000prd.googlegroups.com:


those rods are not very expensive and come in various lengths.  Go to your
local hardware store and get one long enough.. pound it in with a sledge

 

Splice an additional length of the same size wire onto the existing
wire using a copper plated splice block that permits compressing
the wires together by tightening one or two bolts.  Then connect
the new wire to the existing ground rod.  Note that you are not
permitted to solder this connection or to use wire nuts.  It must
be a very strong mechanical connection.

 

  This grounding is a critical safety factor for your home.
It is also required for the proper functioning of a number
of the components of your electrical system.

Check your insurance policy but you are most likely now
uninsured and will remain so until your home is properly
grounded.

  The contractor that raised your house should have made
sure his operations did not sever the ground or that an
adequate ground was reestablished.  Did he also leave the
sewer and water lines short?

  The "eight feet" is a minimum and is to be that much in
direct ground contact/buried.  Your idea of pulling some
of the rod out to make it reach, would still leave you in
your current position.

  In most places (including Houston) your home would be
condemned as uninhabitable,  now if you were to move it
to a Colonias on the border, who knows?

 Luck;
     Ken

 


Actually, no, it's not.  A ground rod in dry ground exhibits a resistivity of
several
ohms up to several hundred ohms.  It is essentially useless as a current sink.
The
ground return path to the transformer is via the neutral conductor in the drop.
Service entrance ground rods are simply an anachronism that is little more than
for
show.


Nope.  No more than if the ground were to become ineffective through inadvertent
damage, corrosion, ground clamp loosening or merely dry ground.


Utter BS.

The correct answer is given elsewhere in this thread.  Get a length of the same
size
or larger wire and a split-bolt connector like this:

http://www.cornerhardware.com/84_sol._split_bolt_connector/6739_6770_7074/17088?zenidPf51eb30e1d70ff7b901db61cf27e8a

Both the wire and the connector are available at the Big Box stores (Lowe's,
etc) as
well as your corner hardware store.  

Simply splice the new wire onto the end of the old ground wire and extend it to
the
ground rod clamp.  Easy as that.

John
--
John De Armond
See my website for my current email address
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.johndearmond.com  <-- best little blog on the net!
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
It isn't Global Warming.... It's Jerry Falwell arriving in hell.