'Front end first' - yes, but make sure you go right to the very front...

[Marco]

I'll bear that in mind, Mike

Cheers.

Marco.

[Mike Reed]

Marco,

S'ok mate, no-one installs them properly TBH. It's just another one of my little 'hobby horses', knocking em in vertically is just 'bad practise', the stories of them going through cables, drains, water pipes etc. are myriad. The worst of all has to be a sewer main, know one knows its happened for ages, maybe years, until one day your garden is awash with shi.... oh, you get the picture!

Cheers,
Mike.

Interesting, other Mike. I've never heard of horizontal burying of earthing rods. I'd have thought that as the bottom half of a vertical rod would be deeper that a horizontally placed one, it's MORE likely to be kept damp. Or is the secret in the carbon? Please elucidate if so.
Another point (facetious) Piercing a sewer really DOES endure damp conditions for earthing impedance, surely!

Does a metre plus long copper rod EVER corrode away?

[Ali Tait]

Hi Marco/Mike/All

Interesting you should say that Mike.I've banged a good few earth rods in over the years(always vertically though!) in order to earth substations.The efficacy really depends on the soil compostion.On some larger/higher voltage subs,we have in the past had to have holes drilled with drilling rigs,in order to fill the holes with some gubbins whose name escapes me at the moment,so as to achieve the required impedance when the rods are driven in.I've never heard of laying them horizontally Mike,but what you say makes good sense.We use a Megger with set lengths of cable and rods driven to set depths to test soil conductivity to see what is required.

Marco,I would be interested in hearing the differences for myself.Speaker and interconnect cables certainly do make a difference,in my experience anyway,so who's to say different mains feed configurations dont either,but my logical side(given my occupation) says this would make no practical difference(impedance aside).I would be quite happy to be proved wrong though! I'd venture to suggest there may be a few things going on that are not fully understood yet.BTW,will you be bringing your amp or any other gear to Owston? I'll be bringing my Mr Liang 845,and also an original WAD 300b PP.Look forward to meeting you too.

Regards,Ali.

[Mike Reed]

I don't suppose RKR had any hand in your dedicated mains installation?

Interesting posting from Ali, and I'm sure he's right about the crap mains supply (well, in some places, anyway).

Surely, though, it's better to maintain that standard, however bad, than to have it degenerate further by going round the house through myriad connections (and, I suppose, appliances) before arriving at your hifi?

[Ali Tait]

Trust me,if you saw your inside your local sub,and the subs further up the chain,electricity supply is pretty much crap everwhere!(from a mains pollution point of view) The point I was making is that it is so polluted already when it arrives in your home,anything you do to it there would seem to me make a vanishingly small improvement.

[Mike]

Another point (facetious) Piercing a sewer really DOES endure damp conditions for earthing impedance, surely!

Does a metre plus long copper rod EVER corrode away?

It certainly does corrode when soaked in piss!

Seriously though..... Horizontal burying IS the way to go. You are right in saying 'never heard of', it almost never happens.

Yes a metre long rod does corrode. The commercially available rods are rarely copper, usually copper plated steel, I'll grant you it's usually several years until there's any problem. The carbon thing is just a way of increasing the conductive surface area of the buried material it also, allegedly, delays the corrosion process, but I have no proof of this, it could be just a rumour.

My own preference is for an 'earth anchor'! ....... Go on, you know you want to ask!

[Mike Reed]

My own preference is for an 'earth anchor'! ....... Go on, you know you want to ask!

ANCHOR WHAT? Isn't that in Cambodia?.

jERRY, Are you being a bit naughtycal?

Whatever it is, I bet it slips into the ground like butter!

Is this the ANCHOR-AGE? No, that's in Alaska

"Time for bed," said Rosemary (????or Dougal. or????)

[Ali Tait]

Yes,copper plated steel.Pure copper wouldnt stand the driving in process.Ok I'll bite! not heard of an earth anchor.

[NRG]

http://www.russandrews.com/article-R...ke_replace.htm

[Mike]

HeHe....

S'easy (and probably unnecessary).

I had a 50M reel of 16m (square) earth wire and one 4ft earth rod...... Hmmmm, seems a waste to not use this copper, "why not strip the insulation from all but the last 5M (all I needed to get into the house) and wrap all the rest around the earth rod" I thought.

So I did!

And then buried the whole caboodle in the garden. Took a while though!

BTW, try and get it as close to the building as possible. That can be a real pain!!!..... All sorts of building shit in the ground, rocks, scaffold pipes (!) etc.etc.

Cheers,
Mike.

P.S. I'm talking entirely about domestic locations here, commercial & industrial sites could be a whole different ball game.