Earthing Without Salt, Cu, Coal

It's difficult to earth without first having solar systemed.

Dear all,

If the question is how to make earth electrode without copper, coal, salt, you can use underground steel pipe or reinforcing bars of a concrete foundation as earthing electrodes.

Regards

Nooooooo - not under BS7671!

I think connecting to any other devices previously earthed can solve your problem.Use low resistance conductors like aluminum if copper is not available.:-)

Foxes seem to manage.

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69

It can be a single wire or mesh of G.I. wires (galvanized iron) burried direct in soil about one meter deep and augumented with G.I. earth rods/plates at corners and some other prime locations if required.

copper, coal, salt is not mandatory at all.

BS7430 gives formulas for the calculation and detail design.

Practically in large electrical projects horizontal wire mesh electrodes (usually copper wire without coal and salt) are extensively exercised.

If you are asking about grounding to earth, I can't imagine why you mentioned coal. There are a number of references in Google including this one:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci861575,00.html

If that is not what you meant, then please rephrase your question.

The OP can use domestic water pipe in his house as an earth, no need to worry about cu, salt and coal.

It depends on the application. Can you please elaborate as your original question is unclear.

The ACTUAL QUESTION: since the dry earth resistance here is really high, we are required to make an earth pit with SALT & charcoal. except there is no coal available. salt takes long to come by. what is the solution if i have already put an earth mat?

Well you don't have to use salt and charcoal (unless the local standards specifically specify it), there are other earthing pit backfill materials available - for example

Link 1

etc. However these are most likely going to take longer to obtain than salt or coal (and be more expensive).

You may be able to get by temporally with some sort of 'wet' earth solution where you set up a system to constantly ensure the ground in and around the earth is wet (to reduce the resistance), but there is no guarantee that this will work or be electrically safe.

the earth resistance here, on average is greater than 60. Following your idea, i'm thinking of going deeper with a pipe alongside. Do you think it will hold for a few days?

Thanks for the quick reply

Please don't confuse coal and charcoal, which has little, if anything, to do with coal.

Possibly, if you are careful and make sure the ground doesn't dry out.

A second temporary pit (or more) connected in parallel may also be a good idea to consider to help reduce the risk of possible electrocution or equipment damage further.

now thats more like it. Thanks, simple yet effective.

I have done it with urine, but that counts as salt I suppose.

Back story: Diesel generator set high in the mountains being used to run a mobile rock crushing plant. The VFD in the feeder would not operate without a ground reference, but the earth was so dry and rocky we couldn't get ground continuity. So I had the backhoe operator dig a pit, I attached the ground cable to a steel plate and threw it in, then had everyone pee into the pit. Worked like a charm.

Well, one possibility is to wire it to the largest pin, the earth pin, of a BS1363 13A plug, and insert the plug in a domestic 13A socket.