Phil:

Have any building projects coming up???

When I built my workshop, I tied the rebar perimeter together and ran a #6
copper wire in the trench. Also put a number of #12 wires under the vapor
barrier (on top of the compacted fill, and below the plastic vapor barrier.
Brought each wire down to a common point at the corner of the room that is now
my Ham Shack. I'd guess there's somewhere over 700 feet of bare copper wire
laying under there... The slab is 32 x 52 feet, and the individual copper wires
range from 50 to 66 feet long, and they are cross connected at a couple of
random places across the narrow dimension of the slab. It's clearly the best
"ground" I've ever had.

There wasn't a ghost of a chance of driving conventional ground rods, as I live
on solid Lava, which has what the locals call "Blue Rock" underlying (which is
just more lava, but with higher density). The rock is so hard, it will stop a
D-9 Caterpillar using a single claw ripper in it's tracks, even if they are
only ripping less than a foot deep. Ripping and leveling a lot here takes more
than a bit of time, particularly compared to dirt or mixed dirt and rock!

Even if I wasn't putting up a building, I'd be thinking about how I could get a
decent grid of copper out there, even if I had to lay it out on the ground and
put an inch of dirt on top and grow new grass.... If I ever move, I know I'll
be doing something similar.

-_Rick AH7H



Northern Lights wrote:

I have a mundane question.

Does anyone have suggestions for installing ground rods in rocky soil? The
topsoil on my property tends to be very shallow, at times only 12 in. deep.
I would rather use earth ground and not go the route of an artificial
ground.

I think I know the answer to my question but wanted to see if anyone out
there had a silver bullet solution.

Phil, K4NE