bmr4106 Haha, awesome! It really is easy. I get a lot of people commenting on why you shouldn't do it this way so it is nice to hear a success story. Thanks!
I use a post driver to get it in the first six and half feet or so, and then I finish it off with a hand sledge. I can see how this might work better sometimes depending on the soil conditions, and I appreciate your sharing this with us. I know that sometimes you can hit a large rock and the rod will bend and hopefully snake it's way around it or break through.
Yeah I don't have a post driver. Before I found this method I tried using a mini sledge and the top of the rod was mushrooming because of all the rocks. So I used this method and it took a lot less effort and time and was pretty cheap. I could have rented a huge hammer drill or something but that would have required multiple trips to Home Depot, more money, and more time.
You saved me from hours of pounding a grounding rod into hard clay soil. Using your hydro-drill took on around 5 to 7 minutes of minimum effort. I did slightly bloody one finger when the hammer missed while driving the hose fitting into the conduit. The hydro-drill also seems to perform deep root tree watering as well. Great idea you had and many thanks for sharing your experience.
This worked very well for me in rocky clay soil. In rocky soil, an important advantage is that you can make multiple attempts with the 1/2" EMT conduit water drill, without having to worry about how to extract an 8 foot grounding rod when you hit an unmovable obstacle: the EMT is easily removed from the failed hole. It took me about twenty attempts to find a way through the maze of rocks, but still the job took about half an hour: less than five minutes when I finally found a clear 8 foot path.
Awesome! Glad it worked well for you. And I agree that it is very easy to use trial and error to find the perfect spot. Definitely NOT easy to pull one back in after you mangle it with a hammer or power tool.
This worked great!, even hit a good size rock at 4 ft down and with a slight angle adjustment was able to get around it. To the point of the rod needing to be firmly contacting the earth, i used a 1/2" conduit for 5/8" rod and drove it down approx 6.5 ft and than hammered it the rest of the way. Vibrations and smaller diameter made it nice and snug. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the comment! Glad it worked as well for you as it did for me. I also ran into quite a few rocks and the water pressure was able to move the rock just enough for me to get around it or slide past it.
Great video! All these naysayers are just old school people that think there is only one way. They were taught a certain way and think that is the end all be all. Obviously water jetting down like that makes the soil loose which yes makes for a loose ground but as I saw you say it takes a few minutes to maybe a day tops to tighten back up. The reason is you are causing a type of erosion in the ground with all that water and allowing it to puddle up with a mud type consistency. This happens naturally to by the way. Even your solid pounded ground becomes loose during super heavy rain or flooding situations. You could if you wanted pull the pounded grounds out just as easily after floods. Don’t believe me go try. Anyway this method is perfectly fine. It might not ohm out right away to the right numbers but as soon as that earth re-compacts and it most certainly will and will only take a day tops. Go test before naysaying and debasing a method that works. Also you might just be a contractor that wishes people would stop diy’ing so you can make more money. I am a contractor and yes would love to have the money to but just debasing because of that is not useful or helpful.
Great comment. I agree that it is only a matter of a short time before the mud dries and you couldn't pull the rod back out if you tried. The soil compacts and it becomes a viable earth ground.
When I was first out of the Navy and worked for an electrical contractor we used a jackhammer with a cup attachment on the bottom to drive ground rods. It was always interesting climbing a step ladder with a jackhammer on your shoulder to get it on top of the ground rod and then squeeze the handle to drive it in.
@@LDSreliance most of the time. The difficulty was being only 5' 5" tall and needing to climb a six foot step ladder with a jackhammer on my shoulder to get it on top of the 8' ground rod. Occasionally you hit a large rock or hardpan and even a jackhammer couldn't drive it in.
10 minutes start to finish... i drizzled the water hose next to the pipe hole 🕳 As I pumped up and down by hand on the 8ft copper pipe When the pipe becomes tight lift it all the way up letting water in the hole Don't stop pumping while the copper is deeply inside or it will seize up. Continue pumping with only moderate pressure down. No need to force the pipe. Drizzled the water hose the whole time and at about 8 to 10 inches from the full length I used a standard hammer to sink it the remainder of the copper pipe. Amazing and satisfying to be done in such a short time.
I have to drive one into the ground and I have been using water and a shovel and a mallet but there is VERY stubborn clay about 2 and a half feet down... do you think this will work for getting down into clay soil?
Worked like a charm for me, only took 5 minutes to drill down 8 plus feet. Pro tip on installing the barbed hose connection, use a dead blow hammer for easier installation as a ball peen tends to bounce off. Other that that, great video!
My only concern is the amount of actual conductivity from the contact between the rod and the earth after the water blasts away a fairly jagged hole. I know that some of it will come back after the mud formed by the water sort of cements the rod to the dirt and the water seeps into the surrounding earth. My question is: would the conductivity be better, as good , or be worse than a hammer driven rod?
In the short term it would be worse. But as the mud dries and erosion and more rain continue to fill any gaps or air bubbles or lack of contact between the rod and the ground, it will be as good as any rod put in by a hammer. I regret at the time I did not have any test equipment that I could measure the resistance of the rod after installation and then at time intervals afterward. Maybe someday I will get around to doing that on another rod.
Care should be taken when installing a grounding rod. The rod has to fit firmly into the ground, without any rotating movement. If you can kick the grounding ring and it moves the rod it's a fail and the inspector will not sign off. Also, the rod has to be buried 8' in the ground, not 7' 6", but most inspectors will let you slid under 3" agl. One last thing, the ground rod must be installed directly underneath the meter main panel, specially for a overhead drop.
All true for grounding a panel, except that the rod must not rotate. IF it rotates, you can't connect power until it's captured. The copper rod will capture when soil around it infiltrates the larger hole, over the course of less than a week in my experience. For other uses, radio antennas and the like, I often put in several rods around a tower, bond all 3, and bond the tower to the 3-rod installation. Radials, if desired (that's more a religious argument than an engineering argument) can be attached to any or all of the installed rods.
i just did this in 5 minutes! it was so easy. i bought 1/2" pvc and fitting a couple years ago after watching this video. i finally got around to doing this and it was so fast and easy. now i have a ground for my emergency generator when the electric power goes out. thanks
Yes, rocky soil does cause problems. But it would cause the same problems for a hammer or mallet or anything other than a masonry drill. So this hack works pretty much anywhere that other methods do.
Yes, your house is grounded like this but may have more than one grounding rod depending on your local building codes. The rod will be driven into the ground very close to your electric meter on the side of your house. You should see a wire going down into the dirt right below or beside the meter.
A hammer drill is clearly the right tool for the job. But short of spending $20-30 to rent one there is another problem. Those grounding rods are copper clad, not solid copper. So if you are beating it to death against hard ground full of rocks, construction debris, and who knows what else you are going to scratch off some of that copper cladding and it will lose some of its effectiveness. That is why I like driving in this cheap electrical conduit into the ground first with water so I know the hole is clear and then you can tap the rod in easily. I can do it in less than 5 minutes for free without running all over town looking for a drill to rent and without destroying the copper rod.
I've actually seen the top of rebar sticking out of the ground for the breaker box at some houses. I never thought that was a good idea. The ground here is so bad here that you won't find many people using a Vertical antenna for ham radio, as it needs a good ground for counterpoise.
Wow water pressure from the house will do that? In only ten minutes? That's a cool idea. The things I learn on UA-cam! Does it require a lot of physical strength when you're pushing down? I'm not very strong even for a female. And now I know how long a grounding rod is. I wondered how deep they were. Thank you for sharing your video!
You are welcome! Yes, normal water pressure will do this. You don't need a ton of strength as long as you keep the drill moving (don't let it get stuck) and quickly put the grounding rod in the hole after removing the drill.
1 this will rarely work. Im driven thousands of ground rods. 1 a ground rod has to make good earth contact the entire length of rhe rod.this will not reach that criteria. 2 a ground rod could be anything metal installed in the earth. The nec now clearly defines this as a steal rod of s length of 8' or greater driven into the earth from the low point of the structure meaning basement etc. (also should be coated with a non corroding metal zinc or copper cladding or plating) can also be schedule 80 copper pipe ir solid copper)not from the outside. So this again would be useless. Or messy and destructive. 3 there are rocks in soil. And there are different soil types. Drive a ground rod with a hammerdrill the way you are supposed to.
Just hammered in a rod in less than 5 min. It would take much longer to go buy the conduit and the brass fitting and then the assembly. Shoot the prep work to drop the rod in to a bored out hole one could put in 20 rods with hammer
Consider yourself lucky, I guess. My soil is very rocky and the more I hammered on the rod the more the end mushroomed. This was the only method that worked for me.
Ok so you drill a hole with the water drill. pull it out and insert a proper ground rod. since it is easy to push it into the hole its an easy install. but isnt the ground rod required to be in tight contact with the earth? driving it into a snug hole that was pushed out as the rod was driven in will have good contact to the earth. but you have washed away the earth and made a loose hole that you can esilly insert the rod. kind of like crimping on a connector without actually squeezing the wire making a loose contact. seems like a bad idea to me Id like to see some tests on this to see if it is actually an effective ground. .
+David Moes You are correct, that would not be a very good ground. But that is not reality. This does not create a loose hole in the ground at all. It actually creates almost a quicksand-like mud that still requires you to pound the rod into the ground and then makes it impossible to pull back out. Watch the demonstration video: ua-cam.com/video/K5eorpQBml0/v-deo.html&feature=iv&src_vid=-kpI8PFNYl4&annotation_id=annotation_2819344611
David, in our neck of the woods, using a steel pipe would not be allowed as a grounding rod. It should be a solid copper rod 5/8 or 3/4 inch diameter 8 foot rod. Will you use steel wires inside the house for wiring? Most other comments debate the amount of time taken by this method or that. Your comment nails it. The method depicted in this video is against the code and does not make make good contact, more so when the pipe rusts.
This is way too much needless work: just dig a small hole with a spoon or anything else, fill it with water, stick the rod in and start jerking it up and down, not by force, just pull it half way up and let it fall down or push it down using minimum effort, if the water drains, just add water without taking the rod out of the hole and keep jerking it... you will be amazed how easily and quickly it will dig its way through... I buried one in less than 5 minutes.
216trixie If you have to burry a rod, first try it the way I said and you will see for yourself... this is the name of the video where I first learnt how to do it: "Driving a Grounding Rod" you can watch the video, but remember not to pull the rod out of the hole to pour water in, it makes it extremely difficult if you do it. You should try it before breaking your arm hammering the rod, or break your wallet buying machines, or waste your time with over complicated solutions like the one in this video...
Arturo Hernandez I know it is very likely you are in denial at this point... your solution is a cool one, you did really well regarding ingenuity... it is just that it is over complicated...
Good question. You have to pull out the pipe and then insert the rod. See my follow up video at How to Install a Grounding Rod The Easy Way (Full Demonstration)
Thanks for the sharing the method. Actually, they should start making hollow grounding rods so that you can attach a hose to it to put it in AND take it out. (And maybe hook up a well at the same time LOL!) The only reason it would have to be solid is if you need to pound on it. I would think a 1/8" wall copper-clad pipe would work just as well.
I would think so, too, but I have done hours and hours of research into grounding and there is only one thing for sure about grounding... no one really knows how it works. Only the outside coating is copper on those solid grounding rods so I agree with you I would think that a hollow copper tube would work just as well.
Great idea! I like the idea of using copper tube for your drill, and just leaving it buried. It costs only a tiny bit more than the steel copper-plated rods, and won't corrode like steel. This process would also be helpful for removing concrete footed fence posts.
+phiksit Hmmm, the tube that I used was mild steel and then it was removed and a solid copper grounding rod was installed in its place. But if what you said works more power to you.
That is a challenge. Dry soil raises the impedance as well as sandy soil. You may not be able to use this water pressure/hydraulic method if there are tons of rocks, either.
I've heard that sprinkler installers use this method for running water lines under sidewalks. But doesn't it make a big mess with all the water and mud?
@@dontblameme6328 I'm sure it's easier for your mama to use a hose to make a mud hole to stand in while she pushes the ground rod in for you. Since theres no men or hammers in your household.
what the......how you git da rod back out da hole? mine gots stuck and now da electric mans wants ta charge me a hunred dollas jist to gits it out. Says i cants use no conduit for groundin, so i shows him yo video.
+Lynnette Cox Basically it creates quicksand, at least in Texas soil. You have to still pound it into the ground but it is not anywhere near as hard as if it was dry. And then there is no way you can pull it out. It is very tight in there.
+LDSreliance Well, we did it!! Drove an 8 foot ground rod in rocky Pennsylvania soil, and did it sitting in my chair in 20 minutes!! Thanks so much for the great info!!
+Lynnette Cox No problem. Glad it worked for you. It is very easy and the soil will naturally compact itself again in due time (if it hasn't already with the mud produced).
That is exactly what I was thinking. It compromised the area immediately adjacent to the rod, likely made for a loose fit, and a poor ground. Would definitely not make for a good RF ground.
a grounding rod can't be E.M.T conduit by electrical code, at least not in Canada. 2 -10foot rods ten feet apart connected with min. 3/O awg fully impacted minus 6" max for bonding wire.
It actually takes hours. With that mud it is impossible to pull the rod back out in a matter of seconds to minutes. And when that mud dries you are good to go. There are no air pockets or loose soil.
@@LDSreliance I recommend that you do some research on this subject. Just because the suction of the mud against the rod makes it difficult to pull the rod out of the ground, does not mean the rod is in acceptable electrical contact with the soil on an ongoing basis. The mud will eventually dry out and diminish the electrical between the soil and the ground rod connection useless.
Another thing that might work (??) is to just shove the grounding rod right into the garden hose, then turn on the hose, then let the rod keep the hose straight as you "water drill" down into the hole, then just pull the garden hose right out and the rod will stay
why cant you use use a copper pipe and leave it in the ground. but somebody else said that it has to be solid. I really like the idea of the water pressure let it do all the work. A piece of ReBar would be so much easier.
I don't know why a pipe wouldn't work. I haven't heard one way or the other. One thing I do know is that almost no one agrees on how to ground properly. There are no consensus answers and the "code" that everyone cites is just regulation and not a "this is the best way to do it" guide.
I have to admit, its a cool concept. The idea of driving a rod into the earth for grounding is simply to provide a path for electricity to go if there was a problem in your home with the wiring. I have to question this method simply because the water is displacing the earth. When you are simply dropping the rod into the ground you have lost an extreme amount of contact of the rod to earth. Over time, the earth will fill back in, but I think that would be in the realm of decades. If you need to put in a rod at home or anywhere, I personally would still recommend a little sweat and drive the stupid thing in. Credential: Electrician
Nick, you should watch my follow up video at How to Install a Grounding Rod The Easy Way (Full Demonstration). Basically once you remove the hydraulic drill from the ground, mud rushes back into the hole and fills it most of the way back in. The good news is that the ground is pretty saturated so you can push the rod over half of the way in and then you can easily pound it the rest of the way with a mallet. Trust me, the rod is completely surrounded by earth and in good contact all the way around.
Got up on a ladder with a 5 lb sledge start pounding like you would a nail .Do that until your arm wears out. A very long dumb sh%!t process. Needless to say I will use your method next time. Thanks for posting 👍
No good for installing ground electrodes " ground rods", you're defeating the purpose. ground rods need to be driven tightly in the earth! and is required by the NEC to be 25 ohms or less.
My brain understands this and wants to do it and test scientifically, but my gut says it will be fine. I think a lot of it comes down to soil composition. Where I live we have dense clay soil. If I dig a hole with a spade and fill with potting soil or the plant I've essentially created a clay pot as the clay compacts from the pressure of the spade into what is on a rainy day tough and on a dry day concrete like shell. This means that any plant I put there will have a problem getting roots to spread and most likely die from lack of water if I'm not careful. I would imagine the same is true for this. Maybe with a looser soil the water will break it up and be absorbed into surrounding soil only to eventually settle back into a tight fit. Only way to know for sure though is to test it I guess.
If they are too big then you have to try another hole. But usually with this method if they are under the size of a baseball or so they will shift around so that you can go around them because of the mud.
I would suggest that you try it out before you disparage the method. Because there is no way that any human being could remove that rod from that hole after it goes in without digging it back out or using heavy equipment. It is in much tighter contact with the ground than simply hammering it in.
Solid copper ground rods are very rarely used. The rods used for residential homes, for example, are all copper clad steel. www.ecmag.com/section/safety/dirt-ground-rods
For the drill or for the grounding rod? If you are referring to the drill, copper is more malleable and softer than mild steel so it would make a worse drill and cost much more because the price of copper is so much higher. The drill has to be able to push aside rocks and go through tough layers of sediment and I don't think a copper drill would handle that well without getting deformed or broken.
LDSreliance I use 1/2" copper pipe for my ground rods all the time. They are cheaper and longer than regular ground rods and have plenty of copper surface area too. Using one as the drill and leaving it in place could be an excellent plan. And you can probably remove the fitting with no problem.
Almost pure copper trumps copper-clad, and will last longer than you do. And at 10 ft. long instead of 8, I can cut one in half and get two 5' rods for some situations...an additional savings. A very important consideration is a no resistance connection. Use fine sandpaper to shine up the connection point and use a copper strap and copper wire if at all possible. Braid is a good RF ground. Use old RG-8 instead of expensive braid. Solid wire is better for a safety (lightning) ground. Using old RG-8 both the inside and outside conductors does both. BTW a hollow pipe will penetrate ground easy even if you have to hammer it in. And there is a tight connection not achieved with mud.
This is not listed and approved UL NOR by the nec article 250 not only that a ground rod needs to be solid 3/8 round and solid this not a ground round hollow rod not approved by the nec and you can start a fire if a short is created in the house our lighting hits the house it needs a true ground rod
Doesn't apply to Direct Current. In fact, earth grounding is not required at all in off-grid DC systems, although there is some debate on if it is advisable.
That does not make a grounding electrode. Note: that water driving method will insure high impedance; you are after a low impedance system. And the proper ground electrode. Drive two solid 5/8 or ¾ x 8 foot long min7 feet apart galvanized or copper clad rod it the proper way as a supplemental or main grounding electrode system if you don’t have building steel or copper water piping as your primary grounding.
+Mike Phillips are you people morons? He is just using the EMT as a vehicle to MAKE A HOLE to put the copper rod in easier. Sorry to be rude, but someone have to finally point that out in plain English to the impaired.
+Mike Phillips Sorry I never saw this comment. The water drill that I created is just to make the hole. I then insert a copper rod in the hole. Click on the full demonstration video (ua-cam.com/video/K5eorpQBml0/v-deo.html) to see it more clearly.
In order to be effective, a ground rod must be in tight contact with the surrounding soil. Ground rods installed using this method will not be in tight contact with the surrounding soil and will not provide an effective grounding electrode. There is much literature available that invalidates the method of ground rod installation that you demonstrate in this video.
I don't understand this line of comment. The mud makes it easier to push the grounding rod into the ground but creates a MASSIVE amount of suction that prevents it from coming back out. I couldn't have gotten that thing out with anything less than an excavator after it was in the ground. So tell me how that is not tight to the ground?? The only real criticism to this method would be if the grounding rod doesn't facilitate electricity to flow into the earth. But this method produces a valid ground of less than about 25 ohms resistance.
This video seems to display a 1/2" EMT 10 foot stick of thin wall steel. Approved grounding rods are typically copper or steel clad ,8 ft long and 1/2 inch thick or thicker SOLID. The Electric metallic tube (EMT) will rot out fast in the ground and will not give 25 ohms to ground or less as required by NEC code 250 grounding. Get approved UL listed ground rods and use a sledge hammer or a hammer drill with a ground rod adapter (you can rent this equipment or pay an electrician) or a pipe with a cap and a T bare handle and slam the rods in. You can drive a rod in usually in 4 - 5 min with a drill or 10 min with a sledge hammer or less with a rod rammer. The easiest way is to lay your two rods in a ditch 2+ 1 /2 feet (2 rods are preferred by most utility companies up north) 6 ft min. apart that are 8 ft long and connect your GEC (grounding electro conductor) to both of them and connect to your panel. Of course you can lay them in deeper but they should be min 6 feet apart. We always use the copper as they last about 12 years and the steel lasts 5-7 years. Thanks for posting the video.
+Victor M. watch the video again, listening carefully to the man speaking. This video shows you how to use water to loose the soil making it easy to drive in a grounding rod. This is a video of making a hole, it doesn't show the installation of the grounding rod.
NOPE. The rod must be tight to the ground. 'Drilling' a hole to insert the ground rod makes it so the rod does not have firm contact with the earth! The best way is to hammer the rod into the earth.
I guarantee you could not get that rod back out of the ground after 5 minutes without a backhoe. In fact, I would bet it it tighter to the ground than hammering it in because the of the suction of the mud.
Why dont you buy a post driver, a sledge, or other well known tools for this job and run the rod in 3 minutes instead of ten? I like the creativity, but this is a waste of money in materials and your time, and time is money.
I have a sledge. And a sledge or post driver will mangle the top of the rod. Remember, this is copper clad steel and the copper cladding can easily be scratched off and lower the effectiveness of the rod. Also, this tool is much more effective if you have rocky soil as the water will create mud and help move rocks out of the way a little bit so you can slide through. With a sledge you will just continue to deform the rod as you pound into a rock.
LDSreliance prove that current wont travel well on a slightly deformed rod head. Do it all the time and it still passes electrical inspection. I think I know a bit about conductivity and electricity wont care about a dinged up head.
If that works for you great. I tried it first with a sledge and I could not get it into the ground without running into rocks. The top of the rod mushroomed to the point where I could not even get the ground wire connector over the top any more. So I looked into renting the right equipment. $40 for a day? No thanks! So I built this rig for $10 and it has worked great for me multiple times.
Wait, you're bitching about wasting money, but tell people to buy a post driver to drive in a single grounding rod? This hydraulic method is unneeded for most people, and in very sandy ground, could be completely useless as pulling the pipe out to put a rod in could collapse the hole, but your "solution" for "wasting" $10 in parts is to buy a post driver that costs WAY more than $10? Do you think much before you type? Evidently not. Sure, an electrician can justify the cost of a post driver to save 7 minutes every job, but this isn't about professionals, numbnuts. It's about people doing ONE rod on their own house.
Dig a small hole.. fill it with water.... keep it filled.... use the ground rod itself..... lift it....drop it...lift it.....drop it.....using hydraulics....it will drill its own hole. Mother nature will..over time...fill any dirt in around the rod...securing it tightly !
Yeah, maybe not. But you would be surprised. That water will loosen up the soil and allow some of those rocks to move around a little bit so you can squeeze by.
Well that would only accomplish half of the effect. The purpose isn't just to make mud, but the water pressure (40-60PSI usually) will actually help to bore the hole for you.
Seems smart.
Although I disagree that driving a rod by hand will strip all the copper off.
Just used your method to install an 8' ground rod, in sand. It worked! Could not believe it. Thank you.
bmr4106 Haha, awesome! It really is easy. I get a lot of people commenting on why you shouldn't do it this way so it is nice to hear a success story. Thanks!
I use a post driver to get it in the first six and half feet or so, and then I finish it off with a hand sledge. I can see how this might work better sometimes depending on the soil conditions, and I appreciate your sharing this with us. I know that sometimes you can hit a large rock and the rod will bend and hopefully snake it's way around it or break through.
Yeah I don't have a post driver. Before I found this method I tried using a mini sledge and the top of the rod was mushrooming because of all the rocks. So I used this method and it took a lot less effort and time and was pretty cheap. I could have rented a huge hammer drill or something but that would have required multiple trips to Home Depot, more money, and more time.
You saved me from hours of pounding a grounding rod into hard clay soil. Using your hydro-drill took on around 5 to 7 minutes of minimum effort.
I did slightly bloody one finger when the hammer missed while driving the hose fitting into the conduit.
The hydro-drill also seems to perform deep root tree watering as well.
Great idea you had and many thanks for sharing your experience.
You are welcome. I also bloodied my hand a bit as I grazed my knuckles against the brick on the side of the house. Oh well. Glad it worked for you!
Hammering the hose fitting into the conduit resulted in a bashing of my finger. Just tore the skin. All in all, it was worth it.
Sorry to hear. I also hurt my hand ramming the rod into the ground. I always say "its not a project unless you bleed".
Haha, I always say "It is not a project unless you bleed". Happens all the time.
This worked very well for me in rocky clay soil. In rocky soil, an important advantage is that you can make multiple attempts with the 1/2" EMT conduit water drill, without having to worry about how to extract an 8 foot grounding rod when you hit an unmovable obstacle: the EMT is easily removed from the failed hole.
It took me about twenty attempts to find a way through the maze of rocks, but still the job took about half an hour: less than five minutes when I finally found a clear 8 foot path.
Awesome! Glad it worked well for you. And I agree that it is very easy to use trial and error to find the perfect spot. Definitely NOT easy to pull one back in after you mangle it with a hammer or power tool.
This worked great!, even hit a good size rock at 4 ft down and with a slight angle adjustment was able to get around it. To the point of the rod needing to be firmly contacting the earth, i used a 1/2" conduit for 5/8" rod and drove it down approx 6.5 ft and than hammered it the rest of the way. Vibrations and smaller diameter made it nice and snug. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the comment! Glad it worked as well for you as it did for me. I also ran into quite a few rocks and the water pressure was able to move the rock just enough for me to get around it or slide past it.
Great video! All these naysayers are just old school people that think there is only one way. They were taught a certain way and think that is the end all be all. Obviously water jetting down like that makes the soil loose which yes makes for a loose ground but as I saw you say it takes a few minutes to maybe a day tops to tighten back up. The reason is you are causing a type of erosion in the ground with all that water and allowing it to puddle up with a mud type consistency. This happens naturally to by the way. Even your solid pounded ground becomes loose during super heavy rain or flooding situations. You could if you wanted pull the pounded grounds out just as easily after floods. Don’t believe me go try. Anyway this method is perfectly fine. It might not ohm out right away to the right numbers but as soon as that earth re-compacts and it most certainly will and will only take a day tops. Go test before naysaying and debasing a method that works. Also you might just be a contractor that wishes people would stop diy’ing so you can make more money. I am a contractor and yes would love to have the money to but just debasing because of that is not useful or helpful.
Great comment. I agree that it is only a matter of a short time before the mud dries and you couldn't pull the rod back out if you tried. The soil compacts and it becomes a viable earth ground.
This worked great and completed my Grounding Rod install in less than 10 minutes. Great video.
The Grumbles Team at EXIT Realty of the South Awesome! Glad it helped.
When I was first out of the Navy and worked for an electrical contractor we used a jackhammer with a cup attachment on the bottom to drive ground rods. It was always interesting climbing a step ladder with a jackhammer on your shoulder to get it on top of the ground rod and then squeeze the handle to drive it in.
That sounds entertaining. It worked well?
@@LDSreliance most of the time. The difficulty was being only 5' 5" tall and needing to climb a six foot step ladder with a jackhammer on my shoulder to get it on top of the 8' ground rod. Occasionally you hit a large rock or hardpan and even a jackhammer couldn't drive it in.
Yeah, true. Without some sort of pretty heavy duty drill you aren't going to get through solid rock with anything.
10 minutes start to finish...
i drizzled the water hose next to the pipe hole 🕳
As I pumped up and down by hand on the 8ft copper pipe
When the pipe becomes tight lift it all the way up letting water in the hole
Don't stop pumping while the copper is deeply inside or it will seize up.
Continue pumping with only moderate pressure down. No need to force the pipe.
Drizzled the water hose the whole time and at about 8 to 10 inches from the full length I used a standard hammer to sink it the remainder of the copper pipe.
Amazing and satisfying to be done in such a short time.
That works, too! Good job!
I have to drive one into the ground and I have been using water and a shovel and a mallet but there is VERY stubborn clay about 2 and a half feet down... do you think this will work for getting down into clay soil?
Yes, but it will take some time. My soil here in Texas is red clay. The only thing this won't work for is rock, obviously.
Smart! I will look into it since I need a grounding for my radio antenna.
Worked like a charm for me, only took 5 minutes to drill down 8 plus feet. Pro tip on installing the barbed hose connection, use a dead blow hammer for easier installation as a ball peen tends to bounce off. Other that that, great video!
Awesome! Glad it worked well for you. Thanks for watching.
hope this works. I stupid glacier bore though this area a long time ago and left a lot of rocks. This trick looks cheap and fast.
Large rocks will still be a problem. But small rocks will move out of the way of this rod as it turns to mud.
My only concern is the amount of actual conductivity from the contact between the rod and the earth after the water blasts away a fairly jagged hole.
I know that some of it will come back after the mud formed by the water sort of cements the rod to the dirt and the water seeps into the surrounding earth.
My question is: would the conductivity be better, as good , or be worse than a hammer driven rod?
In the short term it would be worse. But as the mud dries and erosion and more rain continue to fill any gaps or air bubbles or lack of contact between the rod and the ground, it will be as good as any rod put in by a hammer.
I regret at the time I did not have any test equipment that I could measure the resistance of the rod after installation and then at time intervals afterward. Maybe someday I will get around to doing that on another rod.
The ground is so hard from lack of rain this is going to make it easy to do Thanks ; ]
You will be surprised how well it works. Thanks for watching!
Was so quick I was done took longer to get all the materials together 👍👍👍👌👌🤪
True!
You can fit your hose over the copper ground rod and raise and lower the rod with the water on, that works well also.
Good idea! Thanks for posting.
How well is that going to work in our Missouri limestone? 🙂
You can also use a hammer drill if you have one
Care should be taken when installing a grounding rod. The rod has to fit firmly into the ground, without any rotating movement. If you can kick the grounding ring and it moves the rod it's a fail and the inspector will not sign off. Also, the rod has to be buried 8' in the ground, not 7' 6", but most inspectors will let you slid under 3" agl. One last thing, the ground rod must be installed directly underneath the meter main panel, specially for a overhead drop.
All true for grounding a panel, except that the rod must not rotate. IF it rotates, you can't connect power until it's captured. The copper rod will capture when soil around it infiltrates the larger hole, over the course of less than a week in my experience.
For other uses, radio antennas and the like, I often put in several rods around a tower, bond all 3, and bond the tower to the 3-rod installation. Radials, if desired (that's more a religious argument than an engineering argument) can be attached to any or all of the installed rods.
i just did this in 5 minutes! it was so easy. i bought 1/2" pvc and fitting a couple years ago after watching this video. i finally got around to doing this and it was so fast and easy. now i have a ground for my emergency generator when the electric power goes out. thanks
Glad it helped you! Thanks for watching and commenting.
I’m trying to ground my bed. Does the rod have to go down 8 ft. For that? Thanks
Not necessarily. The biggest thing is that it should have a resistance of about 25 Ohms or less.
I would like to see you try that in Las Vegas.
Yes, rocky soil does cause problems. But it would cause the same problems for a hammer or mallet or anything other than a masonry drill. So this hack works pretty much anywhere that other methods do.
You are welcome! Glad it helped.
Yes, your house is grounded like this but may have more than one grounding rod depending on your local building codes. The rod will be driven into the ground very close to your electric meter on the side of your house. You should see a wire going down into the dirt right below or beside the meter.
I used that method before and it's a slow process, but it does work.
Slower than what? Using a specialized power drill/hammer? Yes. Pounding it in with a sledgehammer? Not really.
A hammer drill is clearly the right tool for the job. But short of spending $20-30 to rent one there is another problem. Those grounding rods are copper clad, not solid copper. So if you are beating it to death against hard ground full of rocks, construction debris, and who knows what else you are going to scratch off some of that copper cladding and it will lose some of its effectiveness. That is why I like driving in this cheap electrical conduit into the ground first with water so I know the hole is clear and then you can tap the rod in easily. I can do it in less than 5 minutes for free without running all over town looking for a drill to rent and without destroying the copper rod.
I've actually seen the top of rebar sticking out of the ground for the breaker box at some houses. I never thought that was a good idea.
The ground here is so bad here that you won't find many people using a Vertical antenna for ham radio, as it needs a good ground for counterpoise.
Yeah, that is probably not ideal.
St8kout
Wow water pressure from the house will do that? In only ten minutes? That's a cool idea. The things I learn on UA-cam! Does it require a lot of physical strength when you're pushing down? I'm not very strong even for a female.
And now I know how long a grounding rod is. I wondered how deep they were. Thank you for sharing your video!
You are welcome! Yes, normal water pressure will do this. You don't need a ton of strength as long as you keep the drill moving (don't let it get stuck) and quickly put the grounding rod in the hole after removing the drill.
@@LDSreliance Wow thank you for answering. I appreciate that! Have a happy day. 😊
You too!
The grounding rod is copper but this device that I made is made of mild steel.
1 this will rarely work. Im driven thousands of ground rods.
1 a ground rod has to make good earth contact the entire length of rhe rod.this will not reach that criteria.
2 a ground rod could be anything metal installed in the earth. The nec now clearly defines this as a steal rod of s length of 8' or greater driven into the earth from the low point of the structure meaning basement etc. (also should be coated with a non corroding metal zinc or copper cladding or plating) can also be schedule 80 copper pipe ir solid copper)not from the outside. So this again would be useless. Or messy and destructive.
3 there are rocks in soil. And there are different soil types. Drive a ground rod with a hammerdrill the way you are supposed to.
Just hammered in a rod in less than 5 min. It would take much longer to go buy the conduit and the brass fitting and then the assembly. Shoot the prep work to drop the rod in to a bored out hole one could put in 20 rods with hammer
Consider yourself lucky, I guess. My soil is very rocky and the more I hammered on the rod the more the end mushroomed. This was the only method that worked for me.
Thanks for the suggestions you have contributed here.
You are welcome. Thanks for watching!
Ok so you drill a hole with the water drill. pull it out and insert a proper ground rod. since it is easy to push it into the hole its an easy install. but isnt the ground rod required to be in tight contact with the earth? driving it into a snug hole that was pushed out as the rod was driven in will have good contact to the earth. but you have washed away the earth and made a loose hole that you can esilly insert the rod. kind of like crimping on a connector without actually squeezing the wire making a loose contact. seems like a bad idea to me Id like to see some tests on this to see if it is actually an effective ground.
.
+David Moes You are correct, that would not be a very good ground. But that is not reality. This does not create a loose hole in the ground at all. It actually creates almost a quicksand-like mud that still requires you to pound the rod into the ground and then makes it impossible to pull back out. Watch the demonstration video: ua-cam.com/video/K5eorpQBml0/v-deo.html&feature=iv&src_vid=-kpI8PFNYl4&annotation_id=annotation_2819344611
David, in our neck of the woods, using a steel pipe would not be allowed as a grounding rod. It should be a solid copper rod 5/8 or 3/4 inch diameter 8 foot rod. Will you use steel wires inside the house for wiring? Most other comments debate the amount of time taken by this method or that. Your comment nails it. The method depicted in this video is against the code and does not make make good contact, more so when the pipe rusts.
Expat Hispanico he doesnt use that rod...thats a tool made to make imserting the actual rod easier
Expat Hispanico were you even listening to what he was saying?
Not effective. Just makes it more complicated and time consuming, no electrician needs more then 5 minutes to do it by hand
Good video
Thanks, Will!
This is way too much needless work: just dig a small hole with a spoon or anything else, fill it with water, stick the rod in and start jerking it up and down, not by force, just pull it half way up and let it fall down or push it down using minimum effort, if the water drains, just add water without taking the rod out of the hole and keep jerking it... you will be amazed how easily and quickly it will dig its way through... I buried one in less than 5 minutes.
Sshhhhh.
216trixie If you have to burry a rod, first try it the way I said and you will see for yourself... this is the name of the video where I first learnt how to do it: "Driving a Grounding Rod" you can watch the video, but remember not to pull the rod out of the hole to pour water in, it makes it extremely difficult if you do it. You should try it before breaking your arm hammering the rod, or break your wallet buying machines, or waste your time with over complicated solutions like the one in this video...
Arturo Hernandez I would be interested in seeing a video of this method in practice. I would like to see you do that in 5 minutes.
Arturo Hernandez I know it is very likely you are in denial at this point... your solution is a cool one, you did really well regarding ingenuity... it is just that it is over complicated...
I disagree and invite you again to post a video showing your method works.
True. I didn't have one so this was the next best thing.
I just use my hammer drill & a ladder - easy peasy
How you gonna get it back out?
You can't unless you dig around it. It has to be in tight to the ground or it won't function.
Does the rod drop into the pipe and you pull the pipe out or do you pull it out first and then put the rod in the hole?
Good question. You have to pull out the pipe and then insert the rod. See my follow up video at How to Install a Grounding Rod The Easy Way (Full Demonstration)
Looks good I am going to try it
Good luck!
I wish you actually SHOW the rod going in, it's really hard to believe it's that easy!
Thanks for the sharing the method. Actually, they should start making hollow grounding rods so that you can attach a hose to it to put it in AND take it out. (And maybe hook up a well at the same time LOL!) The only reason it would have to be solid is if you need to pound on it. I would think a 1/8" wall copper-clad pipe would work just as well.
I would think so, too, but I have done hours and hours of research into grounding and there is only one thing for sure about grounding... no one really knows how it works. Only the outside coating is copper on those solid grounding rods so I agree with you I would think that a hollow copper tube would work just as well.
The ignorance in this comment section is outrageous.
Yeah, I never dreamed this little trick would generate so much angst and differing expert opinions.
Great idea! I like the idea of using copper tube for your drill, and just leaving it buried. It costs only a tiny bit more than the steel copper-plated rods, and won't corrode like steel. This process would also be helpful for removing concrete footed fence posts.
+phiksit Hmmm, the tube that I used was mild steel and then it was removed and a solid copper grounding rod was installed in its place. But if what you said works more power to you.
That is a challenge. Dry soil raises the impedance as well as sandy soil. You may not be able to use this water pressure/hydraulic method if there are tons of rocks, either.
Good to know! Thanks
I've heard that sprinkler installers use this method for running water lines under sidewalks. But doesn't it make a big mess with all the water and mud?
That is interesting. It does create some mud but it doesn't take very long to do so it isn't that bad.
Oh no.... It will make a mess. How in the world will we survive Nancy?
@@dontblameme6328 I'm sure it's easier for your mama to use a hose to make a mud hole to stand in while she pushes the ground rod in for you. Since theres no men or hammers in your household.
what the......how you git da rod back out da hole? mine gots stuck and now da electric mans wants ta charge me a hunred dollas jist to gits it out. Says i cants use no conduit for groundin, so i shows him yo video.
If you keep the water going and the conduit moving up and down it will never get stuck.
what makes the grounding rod be tight in the ground when you put it in? Won't the water loosen it?
+Lynnette Cox Basically it creates quicksand, at least in Texas soil. You have to still pound it into the ground but it is not anywhere near as hard as if it was dry. And then there is no way you can pull it out. It is very tight in there.
+LDSreliance OK. Thank you very much!
Lynnette Cox
You are welcome. Thanks for watching!
+LDSreliance Well, we did it!! Drove an 8 foot ground rod in rocky Pennsylvania soil, and did it sitting in my chair in 20 minutes!! Thanks so much for the great info!!
+Lynnette Cox No problem. Glad it worked for you. It is very easy and the soil will naturally compact itself again in due time (if it hasn't already with the mud produced).
except then the hole is larger than the ground rod so the rod will not really be grounded. this method is not approved by code.
So I set up a metal pipe with garden hose. Most I can drill is about one to two feet. Then I hit rock. Just does not seem to work,
Are you going up and down and twisting? Worked great for me.
This method will fail inspection...
That is exactly what I was thinking. It compromised the area immediately adjacent to the rod, likely made for a loose fit, and a poor ground. Would definitely not make for a good RF ground.
great job
mohammad shah Hey thanks!
still by definition a drill. buy a cheap hammer drill and now you have a cool hammer drill. plus there's a back fill issue. its a nice hack!
I like pounding it in (sometimes it bows or warped)you only see whats sticking out of the ground , 3 or 4 inches
+Dean Murray OK, whatever works!
Should work for thermal heating/cooling.
a grounding rod can't be E.M.T conduit by electrical code, at least not in Canada. 2 -10foot rods ten feet apart connected with min. 3/O awg fully impacted minus 6" max for bonding wire.
Did you watch the video? The conduit is only used to bore the hole, not as the grounding rod itself.
This will make a lousy ground until the soil can compact again, which could take months or years.
It actually takes hours. With that mud it is impossible to pull the rod back out in a matter of seconds to minutes. And when that mud dries you are good to go. There are no air pockets or loose soil.
@@LDSreliance I recommend that you do some research on this subject. Just because the suction of the mud against the rod makes it difficult to pull the rod out of the ground, does not mean the rod is in acceptable electrical contact with the soil on an ongoing basis. The mud will eventually dry out and diminish the electrical between the soil and the ground rod connection useless.
Another thing that might work (??) is to just shove the grounding rod right into the garden hose, then turn on the hose, then let the rod keep the hose straight as you "water drill" down into the hole, then just pull the garden hose right out and the rod will stay
If this works ,you will be my noble nominee . Honestly !
why cant you use use a copper pipe and leave it in the ground. but somebody else said that it has to be solid. I really like the idea of the water pressure let it do all the work. A piece of ReBar would be so much easier.
I don't know why a pipe wouldn't work. I haven't heard one way or the other. One thing I do know is that almost no one agrees on how to ground properly. There are no consensus answers and the "code" that everyone cites is just regulation and not a "this is the best way to do it" guide.
Brilliant!
Thanks!
its a "fracking" genius.
Out of curiosity, can you use a tree as grounding?
+enjoypolo No, a grounding rod needs to be able to conduct electricity really well. Trees don't conduct very well.
@@LDSreliance trees dont conduct at all
when using my generator i get my mother in law to hold the grounding wire, whilst i start up the gennie
Haha
Do you tell her to take her shoes off because with shoes on it can be dangerous?
I have to admit, its a cool concept. The idea of driving a rod into the earth for grounding is simply to provide a path for electricity to go if there was a problem in your home with the wiring. I have to question this method simply because the water is displacing the earth. When you are simply dropping the rod into the ground you have lost an extreme amount of contact of the rod to earth. Over time, the earth will fill back in, but I think that would be in the realm of decades. If you need to put in a rod at home or anywhere, I personally would still recommend a little sweat and drive the stupid thing in.
Credential: Electrician
Nick, you should watch my follow up video at How to Install a Grounding Rod The Easy Way (Full Demonstration). Basically once you remove the hydraulic drill from the ground, mud rushes back into the hole and fills it most of the way back in. The good news is that the ground is pretty saturated so you can push the rod over half of the way in and then you can easily pound it the rest of the way with a mallet. Trust me, the rod is completely surrounded by earth and in good contact all the way around.
Got up on a ladder with a 5 lb sledge start pounding like you would a nail .Do that until your arm wears out. A very long dumb sh%!t process. Needless to say I will use your method next time. Thanks for posting 👍
Hopefully you didn't mushroom the top of the rod like I did the first time. That is when I looked for a better method.
It did but the clamp still fit over it
is this how you ground your house or something, what is this for
Ok, I tried with nothing, Obviously, one needs a trick. This looks like the trick. I will revisit this youtube site and declare victory or failure.
Sounds good! I have yet to hear of this method failing.
No good for installing ground electrodes " ground rods", you're defeating the purpose. ground rods need to be driven tightly in the earth! and is required by the NEC to be 25 ohms or less.
My brain understands this and wants to do it and test scientifically, but my gut says it will be fine.
I think a lot of it comes down to soil composition. Where I live we have dense clay soil. If I dig a hole with a spade and fill with potting soil or the plant I've essentially created a clay pot as the clay compacts from the pressure of the spade into what is on a rainy day tough and on a dry day concrete like shell. This means that any plant I put there will have a problem getting roots to spread and most likely die from lack of water if I'm not careful.
I would imagine the same is true for this. Maybe with a looser soil the water will break it up and be absorbed into surrounding soil only to eventually settle back into a tight fit. Only way to know for sure though is to test it I guess.
Buying these same materials in May 2022 cost me $29.
Why would it be useless without the copper coating? Grounding rods don't have to be copper.
Kinda like a sharkbite fitting😆
Yeah it really grabs on!
Hmm .
Interestingly amusing ..tjanks for the tip I hear the mountain men calling me
Thanks!
If losing the copper coating on a copper grounding rod renders it useless then why are you showing us a galvanized steel rod to use?
It isn't a galvanized steel rod. It is a copper clad rod.
What happens when you hit a big rock? That's what distributed in the soil around here and why farmers' fields have stone walls on their borders/
If they are too big then you have to try another hole. But usually with this method if they are under the size of a baseball or so they will shift around so that you can go around them because of the mud.
When you install a rod like this it is loose in the ground so you have no ground!
I would suggest that you try it out before you disparage the method. Because there is no way that any human being could remove that rod from that hole after it goes in without digging it back out or using heavy equipment. It is in much tighter contact with the ground than simply hammering it in.
Solid copper rods are solid copper. There ain't no scraping off the coating.
Solid copper ground rods are very rarely used. The rods used for residential homes, for example, are all copper clad steel. www.ecmag.com/section/safety/dirt-ground-rods
So you're the guy that invented fracking.
Haha. If there were explosives on the bottom of the rod then yes!
Hum, why not use a length of 3/4" copper pipe/tubing instead?
For the drill or for the grounding rod? If you are referring to the drill, copper is more malleable and softer than mild steel so it would make a worse drill and cost much more because the price of copper is so much higher. The drill has to be able to push aside rocks and go through tough layers of sediment and I don't think a copper drill would handle that well without getting deformed or broken.
LDSreliance I use 1/2" copper pipe for my ground rods all the time. They are cheaper and longer than regular ground rods and have plenty of copper surface area too. Using one as the drill and leaving it in place could be an excellent plan. And you can probably remove the fitting with no problem.
That is a pretty good idea. Have you ever checked the impedance to make sure that it is a viable ground?
Almost pure copper trumps copper-clad, and will last longer than you do. And at 10 ft. long instead of 8, I can cut one in half and get two 5' rods for some situations...an additional savings. A very important consideration is a no resistance connection. Use fine sandpaper to shine up the connection point and use a copper strap and copper wire if at all possible. Braid is a good RF ground. Use old RG-8 instead of expensive braid. Solid wire is better for a safety (lightning) ground. Using old RG-8 both the inside and outside conductors does both. BTW a hollow pipe will penetrate ground easy even if you have to hammer it in. And there is a tight connection not achieved with mud.
Sounds good. If I ever have to do this again I will try it out. Thanks!
2:28, that's not correct. I've removed ground rod's from the ground after field day and the copper is intact.
This is not listed and approved UL NOR by the nec article 250 not only that a ground rod needs to be solid 3/8 round and solid this not a ground round hollow rod not approved by the nec and you can start a fire if a short is created in the house our lighting hits the house it needs a true ground rod
Doesn't apply to Direct Current. In fact, earth grounding is not required at all in off-grid DC systems, although there is some debate on if it is advisable.
That does not make a grounding electrode. Note: that water driving method will insure high impedance; you are after a low impedance system. And the proper ground electrode. Drive two solid 5/8 or ¾ x 8 foot long min7 feet apart galvanized or copper clad rod it the proper way as a supplemental or main grounding electrode system if you don’t have building steel or copper water piping as your primary grounding.
+Mike Phillips are you people morons? He is just using the EMT as a vehicle to MAKE A HOLE to put the copper rod in easier. Sorry to be rude, but someone have to finally point that out in plain English to the impaired.
+Mike Phillips Sorry I never saw this comment. The water drill that I created is just to make the hole. I then insert a copper rod in the hole. Click on the full demonstration video (ua-cam.com/video/K5eorpQBml0/v-deo.html) to see it more clearly.
In order to be effective, a ground rod must be in tight contact with the surrounding soil. Ground rods installed using this method will not be in tight contact with the surrounding soil and will not provide an effective grounding electrode. There is much literature available that invalidates the method of ground rod installation that you demonstrate in this video.
I don't understand this line of comment. The mud makes it easier to push the grounding rod into the ground but creates a MASSIVE amount of suction that prevents it from coming back out. I couldn't have gotten that thing out with anything less than an excavator after it was in the ground. So tell me how that is not tight to the ground??
The only real criticism to this method would be if the grounding rod doesn't facilitate electricity to flow into the earth. But this method produces a valid ground of less than about 25 ohms resistance.
It took me 5 minutes with a hammer drill
Yes that is the best tool. But not everyone has one of those.
My grounding rods are solid, not hollow.
So are mine.
Thanks FOR NOT SHOWING
yeah any ideas of how to make this work when it has been below zero for 2 months and the current daily high is 10 degrees lol
Haha, you would have to use heated water for that I bet. Sorry!
Add an outside hot water spigot beside the cold water spigot and go to work.
I added one for dog washing or if needed for another job.
This video seems to display a 1/2" EMT 10 foot stick of thin wall steel. Approved grounding rods are typically copper or steel clad ,8 ft long and 1/2 inch thick or thicker SOLID. The Electric metallic tube (EMT) will rot out fast in the ground and will not give 25 ohms to ground or less as required by NEC code 250 grounding.
Get approved UL listed ground rods and use a sledge hammer or a hammer drill with a ground rod adapter
(you can rent this equipment or pay an electrician) or a pipe with a cap and a T bare handle and slam the rods in.
You can drive a rod in usually in 4 - 5 min with a drill or 10 min with a sledge hammer or less with a rod rammer.
The easiest way is to lay your two rods in a ditch 2+ 1 /2 feet (2 rods are preferred by most utility companies up north) 6 ft min. apart that are 8 ft long and connect your GEC (grounding electro conductor) to both of them and connect to your panel. Of course you can lay them in deeper but they should be min 6 feet apart. We always use the copper as they last about 12 years and the steel lasts 5-7 years.
Thanks for posting the video.
+Victor M. watch the video again, listening carefully to the man speaking. This video shows you how to use water to loose the soil making it easy to drive in a grounding rod. This is a video of making a hole, it doesn't show the installation of the grounding rod.
Grounding tower
$2 $3 back then, now its $17 for a 8 foot 😢
Serious? Holy crap.
Oh fine .....Now I find this out. I'm in about 4 1/2 feet......i guess I will remember next time....😓
How did you do the 4.5 feet? With a sledge?
My attempts only get me to about 18 inches. very disppointing
@@LDSreliance yes
I do it by hand......... and it takes 2 minutes probably..
Easy! Cut a 1 foot piece off and pound it on in! Nobody knows....
J/K. Your electricity kinda likes having that as its trusty sidekick.
+dangerdavefreestyle Yeah, I don't think a one foot grounding rod is quite as good :)
Passes inspection?
NOPE. The rod must be tight to the ground. 'Drilling' a hole to insert the ground rod makes it so the rod does not have firm contact with the earth! The best way is to hammer the rod into the earth.
I guarantee you could not get that rod back out of the ground after 5 minutes without a backhoe. In fact, I would bet it it tighter to the ground than hammering it in because the of the suction of the mud.
lol, just take a freaking hammer and pount it in. You put a piece of wood over the ground rod and it doesn't take nothing off of it.
Good luck breaking a gasline, water pipe, sewer pipe, electric line, etc. 😂😂🤷♂️🤷♂️
Why dont you buy a post driver, a sledge, or other well known tools for this job and run the rod in 3 minutes instead of ten? I like the creativity, but this is a waste of money in materials and your time, and time is money.
I have a sledge. And a sledge or post driver will mangle the top of the rod. Remember, this is copper clad steel and the copper cladding can easily be scratched off and lower the effectiveness of the rod.
Also, this tool is much more effective if you have rocky soil as the water will create mud and help move rocks out of the way a little bit so you can slide through. With a sledge you will just continue to deform the rod as you pound into a rock.
LDSreliance prove that current wont travel well on a slightly deformed rod head. Do it all the time and it still passes electrical inspection. I think I know a bit about conductivity and electricity wont care about a dinged up head.
If that works for you great. I tried it first with a sledge and I could not get it into the ground without running into rocks. The top of the rod mushroomed to the point where I could not even get the ground wire connector over the top any more. So I looked into renting the right equipment. $40 for a day? No thanks! So I built this rig for $10 and it has worked great for me multiple times.
Wait, you're bitching about wasting money, but tell people to buy a post driver to drive in a single grounding rod?
This hydraulic method is unneeded for most people, and in very sandy ground, could be completely useless as pulling the pipe out to put a rod in could collapse the hole, but your "solution" for "wasting" $10 in parts is to buy a post driver that costs WAY more than $10?
Do you think much before you type? Evidently not.
Sure, an electrician can justify the cost of a post driver to save 7 minutes every job, but this isn't about professionals, numbnuts. It's about people doing ONE rod on their own house.
Dig a small hole.. fill it with water.... keep it filled.... use the ground rod itself..... lift it....drop it...lift it.....drop it.....using hydraulics....it will drill its own hole. Mother nature will..over time...fill any dirt in around the rod...securing it tightly !
Yep, that is very similar to what I did.
Try that in New England soil. No way.
Yeah, maybe not. But you would be surprised. That water will loosen up the soil and allow some of those rocks to move around a little bit so you can squeeze by.
Could just use a bottle of water...
Well that would only accomplish half of the effect. The purpose isn't just to make mud, but the water pressure (40-60PSI usually) will actually help to bore the hole for you.
your rod has no copper. :/
I don't think you watched the whole video.