How to make grounding

Today we will talk about electrical safety, how to make grounding. In the Rules for the Installation of Electric Installations (PUE), this bible for electricians, it is quite clear that the electrical equipment must be connected to the ground loop. This is not a whim, but a requirement, the adherence to which in many cases allows to save a person's life.

Let's look closely at the network cords of an automatic washing machine or electric water heater. The manufacturers placed special tags on them with a reminder that these household appliances should be connected to an electrical network with grounding. It is unlikely that anyone will doubt the correctness of this connection. The problem is that in the houses and apartments of the times of the Soviet construction there is no grounding loop. Even if it is, no one bothered to bring a third, grounding wire to sockets and appliances - that was the standard. Accordingly, no one was interested in how to make grounding. This is easily explained if you recall the number of electrical appliances in the average house: a radio, a lamp, an iron and a TV. Now everything has changed: there are more devices, and the potential danger has increased accordingly. Not surprisingly, Internet forums often ask the question: "How to make grounding?". Fortunately, this task is easily solved.

Next, we will talk about how to make a grounding in a private house. Of course, you can simply drive a metal pipe into the ground and bring a wire to it, but the effectiveness of such a solution may not be sufficient. The rules for the installation of the grounding system are clearly regulated, and the resistance of the circuit is 4 ohms. A trumpet clogging the pipe may not provide the desired value. In that case, how to make the grounding? It is necessary to prepare electrodes - it can be metal rods, pipes, corners in length not less than 2 meters. Although the conductivity of copper is one of the highest, this metal is covered by a poorly conductive oxide from contact with air, so ordinary steel is used. In addition, it is much cheaper.

If it is decided to use a corner, then its cross-sectional area should be at least 150 mm square. - this is necessary to ensure sufficient contact with the soil. If the rods are taken for the electrodes, then their diameter should be not less than 10 mm. The pipes are subjected to more stringent requirements: the wall thickness should be 3.5 mm or more with a diameter of 32 mm. On future electrodes there should be no paint, varnish, any other insulating layers.

To create a simple system, you need to draw a triangle on the ground with a distance of 1.2 m. Next, you need to go deep by half a meter, place electrodes in the corners and hammer them with a sledgehammer. After that they are connected by a conductor - a metal strip or a large cross-section rod (not less than 50 mm square), welding connecting the system together. This conductor under the ground is brought to the house and at the wall we bring to the surface. We fix to the wall with dowels. To the strip (rod) with the cap we weld the bolt. It remains to draw a line copper (6 mm square) or aluminum (16 mm square) wire to the house distribution board, and from there - the third wire throughout the wiring.

But how to make grounding in the apartment, living on the upper floors? In the skyscrapers there is always a contour, but simply it is not brought into living quarters. I'll have to pull the line to the landing in the stairwell, where the shield with meters and automatic devices is located. It is there that you can find the grounding bus and connect to it. Next, the extended wire should be taken to your apartment and distributed throughout the wiring, turning it into a three-wire - grounded. Apparently, with this method, you do not need to dig anything, so the work is done faster.