? regarding service entrance grounding electrodes

[Seeb]

Nothing to do with code - but you can test your ground with a 1 amp breaker or small light bulb from hot to ground ( make sure ground is isolated from house and bonding 1st )

[Wao nahele kane]

This is a bit off topic but still relative.
Ok - now I’m going to shake the Mac Tree because this topic has really fascinated me from the get go and sparked a suspicion regarding another issue, that’s radio related in Hawaii.
LOL… here’s what’s really going on in my mind from all those years of in-depth casual Physics and Electrical study/experimentation; this will be liken to the old story “The Emperors New Clothes”. A gentleman named Thomas Townsend Brown who is responsible for fleshing out some very interesting electrical effects that were recently declassified settled in Hawaii for many years while and after working for the Department of the Navy using Lava as an INSULATOR in many of his EXTREMELY High Voltage curious experiments.
What blows my mind about this issue is the simple fact that Lava is factually an excellent insulator and not a friggen conductor at all. (this is where the kid says; “look the king has no clothes!”) This is why GPR works well in soils like Hawaii too. When it all boils down to it; where’s the ground potential in Lava let alone conductance? Unless there’s a potential pathway to the ocean through conductive soils (not just Lava), the ground potential is through the atmosphere to the ocean. Ponder on that one a while because it has a great deal of merit. In a case regarding grounding atmospherically, the “sea of potential” is the key to effective grounding where a conductor composed of a LARGE body of correct soils (concrete or mineral cocktail slab) will effectively increase the ground potential through vast surface contact conductance with the atmosphere and the body of soils ability in itself to absorb a charge acting like a capacitor through the atmospheric electromagnetic field. So the question remains… is ground conductance “ass””u””me”d occurring through the Lava actually perhaps conducting more so through the humid atmosphere instead and if so, what’s this spell for radio based communications in the region as more and more homes are built?


E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.

[jerry]

Wao nahele kane,

"Soil" is used in the NEC, its not a Hawaii thing. You can install only one ground rod but then you have to test it show less than 25 ohms. If you put in two, no test is needed.

Regarding your "off topic" post, yes, lava is a lousy conductor. Which is why when lightening strikes it sometimes travels on the surface until it finds a nice conductive ground rod and travels up into your service, then to all your fancy electronic devices. The moral of the story, unplug your electronic stuff when you hear lightening and don't use your land line phone.

Jerry

[David M]

Makes me happy to have soil - usually wet soil

David

Ninole Resident

[Wao nahele kane]

Jerry,
It skins the surface; Really? Whoa, now that is an impressive insulator! I’ve never seen that over there before and have never heard about it on the ground but it’s on par with trees, I’ve seen the effects of skinning around our large evergreen trees here with wide spiraling deep burn marks around the trees trunks. That's BIG TIME bad news about the Lava though. Yeah - that would be confirmation of my suspicions. That’s all the more reason to get a huge conductive cocktail slab in place. In bare lava there's certainly a need for something to absorb a lightening charge in a capacitive manner and a properly doped driveway pad could certainly do the trick. That’s some mega amperes indeed and a big time potential killer. I’m going to dig into this issue more deeply.
Edit to add;
IEEE-142
E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.

[Wao nahele kane]

Here's a link to the codes, use the "codebuddy" upper right corner of page to get started.
http://www.naffainc.com/
Direct link:
http://www.naffainc.com/x/CB2/Elect/Grou...ductor.htm
There appears to be no need for a supplimental ground electrode if you're using a concrete encased electrode. Keep in mind the other bonding requirements though.


E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.

[EightFingers]

"... Lava is factually an excellent insulator and not a friggen conductor at all. ..."

That's why I brought this mess up to begin with......[]

[MarkP]

One of the main reasons for grounding rods is so that the electricity that shorts to the metal frame of your toaster oven, which is grounded, will cheerfully go to ground through the third prong on the plug instead of waiting for you to come along and provide a path to ground. In other words the ground wire system in your house doesn't have to be good, just better than you standing on the ground. If the lava were such a great insulator you wouldn't need a ground system to protect you from getting a shock because it would be like standing on a rubber mat. I suspect that the lava used as an insulator in electric experiments was carefully selected and perfectly dry. The lava your house is on is saturated with slightly acidic rain water. Your concrete slab is somewhat alkaline so there are probably enough ions floating around that the the ground is still the place to put ground rods. The vast voltages and amps associated with lightning are so huge that I think you are screwed no matter what. How do lightning rods work anyway? Lightning can explode a tree 5' in diameter and turns vast swaths of the atmosphere incandescent. How can any conductor handle that? Seems like putting up a lightning rod would be like poking a hole in a dike; yea, water will flow there but so much water is there to be drained that only damage will result. Obviously there is something I am not seeing.

[Wao nahele kane]

Mark, yep that's always been the primary reason for grounding but there are other reasons too. BTW… It only takes a couple seconds of one tenth of one amp to kill a person. What's your ground electrode actually able to handle - 6 amps or the whole 20 or 30 amp load? If it's not relatively close to the breakers rated load, the breaker won't trip and then one has a tendency to die if they get nailed by the residual.

There's a system reality test to see if your ground is safe... I'm not going to explain it here because I'm not going to promote the test for safety concerns.

As per lightening and conductors, yes, if properly set up they can handle the load. Lightening rods however do not attract lightening and don't work unless struck.


E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa.