diy solar

diy solar

need help with house ground

Concrete is good anywhere, even in moist soil. It increases surface area contact.
 
They make themselves the most likely to be hit if lightning is trying to arc to ground in that location. This is why I want my equipment to be grounded or the same potential as the earth around it. I live on a mountain so I researched grounding and lightning extensively before beginning to build up there. I do not want to increase the potential that lightning would strike anywhere near my solar equipment. This is why I don't want or like lightning rods. What I did find out is there are many things about lightning we still do not understand. I took what we seem to know and applied it the best that I could.

Quote: The one thing lightning rods do are increase the probability of creating a streamer, which increases the odds that it will make contact with the last step leader. If the streamer is successful in making contact with that last step leader, it will direct the electric current into the ground.

I have worked on mountaintops quite a bit on the towers and RF communications equipment. We had to sometimes create our own artificial ground grids when we could not drive ground rods into soil because the mountaintop was mostly rock. The ground grids were made of interconnected copper and/or aluminum wire arranged in a wagon wheel pattern with the equipment building being in the center of the hub. If good, deep earth ground is available, use that for your ground rods of course. If the ground is extremely dry or the covering of soil over the rock is thin, lay the ground rods down horizontally and use as many as you can.
 
My grounds are like this. The two Ufer grounds are connected together under ground. The ground rod just provides a way to attach clamps for grounding additional components. So like I said it is one continuous ground with a way to attach to it at both the solar array and the solar shed.View attachment 455
View attachment 453
View attachment 454
I have used exothermic welding to connect the ground cables to towers and equipment; it is by far the best connection method and virtually corrosion proof. https://www.cad-weld.com/
 
I have worked on mountaintops quite a bit on the towers and RF communications equipment. We had to sometimes create our own artificial ground grids when we could not drive ground rods into soil because the mountaintop was mostly rock. The ground grids were made of interconnected copper and/or aluminum wire arranged in a wagon wheel pattern with the equipment building being in the center of the hub. If good, deep earth ground is available, use that for your ground rods of course. If the ground is extremely dry or the covering of soil over the rock is thin, lay the ground rods down horizontally and use as many as you can.
All good options. But thankfully I did not have to improvise too much as the ground bars went in after a bit of work with an electric jack hammer.
 
All good options. But thankfully I did not have to improvise too much as the ground bars went in after a bit of work with an electric jack hammer.
[/QUOTE Did the ground rods go into rock?
 
I think they either warped and went around rocks or split them and went around them. Either way they went into the ground and became a grounding point. I did however depend on the Ufer ground bar as my actual ground though.
 
NEC allows that, but watch this video. Apparently multiple grounds are bad.
Not that there's much you can do about it. Once you've put posts into the earth and hooked panels to it, you've got a second ground regardless.

If it's all on your roof (and not a ground mounted system away from the house) after seeing the video I would not use a second ground for anything if I could help it.
Wow I went down that rabbit hole deep! One ground is better!
 
My thought was that if your grounds are properly joined or bonded together essentially one ground I believe you are good but hey that's just me. After all the aluminum frame for the solar panels is bolted to the concrete so isn't that also another ground? I did bond the solar mount to the Ufer ground in hopes to also make that path to my Ufer ground. There Just isn't any great way to do this I suppose. I had concerns with running solar panel wires to the shed while not providing a good path to a single ground. A little #6 coper wire run over to the solar shed seemed like a bad idea to me. So I provided one big continuous Ufer ground for it all.

Unfortunately with the home down the hill and 100' away that created an issue and required another UFer ground in the home foundation. That video did however make me think about running a bonding ground to the solar Ufer ground above on the hill. I just don't know if that is a good idea with as far from the home the solar is. Thoughts?

Adding a second or multiple independent grounds on the same structure like shown in the video would cause an issue IMHO
 
Lightning is a very narrow view of grounding, but one you are probably concerned with. Code is always code. A ground wire is always a current path to electrocution. I'm in a lot of industrial buildings and prefer a local ground at a machine putting the concrete I am laying at the same potential of the machine I am working on. Lightning may be a remote possibility, but I can guarantee you that some ground in the building is screwed up.

I was in one factory on a different technical issue. From 50 feet away I could see a piece of metal laying against a steel structure and just slightly touching a cast iron sewer vent stack. Sparks were shooting from it. This was years after experts were called in to solve ground problems. There were bars coming from the concrete that used bond to the building frame. These, when the building was build, were to keep the concrete at the same potential as the building. These had been lifted when the electrical system had been upgraded. I was asked for suggestions and told them I wanted no part of it. To this date nothing has changed. I've seen more horrendous things in factories. I've seen voltage potentials between two buildings of 30V.

It is interesting how perspective changes. Watch another one of his videos
He talks about putting in a separate ground at the washing machine. What happened to the single point ground rule? I guess it is OK once the inspector has left. Old regs weren't there because people were stupid, it was there to solve a problem. New regs and grandfathered buildings present a danger too. I know people that map rivers of current in the middle of an open field when a power plant is many miles away. This is a far more educational video to watch. After you will be confused more than ever.
 
Also good information!
Had I been grid tied I would have really twisted a few brain cells trying figure out how to protect my system LOL.
 
Last edited:
Well the message from that is bond at one point only . Everything below ground goes to one point and everything above goes to that same point.
Well he also said that if a 20' ground point is not practicable ( new word ) then an 8' ground rod must be used in that location and a #6 bare copper wire at minimum will be buried to connect ( bond ) that rod to the main ground point. So I'm going to do that from my home to the shed now. So far the way I did my solar grounding is exactly as they described... all grounds connect or are bonded together to provide effectively one single ground point.

My studies on lightning theory ( emphasis on theory ) said that any difference in potential from true earth ground or ground potential ( as in lightning rods ) will be susceptible to a strike if lightning is attempting to strike in that location. So my bad for thinking 100' made for a different rule on my home vs solar system. I will fix this as it is an easy fix in my case. I also forgot my well casing is bonded to the house Ufer ground so I'm going to be really protected. Being off grid seems to be safer on an entirely new level to me now?
 
Last edited:
Greetings. I think without a doubt you should connect it all to the grounding rod of your house. I could be wrong, of course, but my memory tells me that I am right, as I have encountered a similar issue. But I suggest you contact residential architects just in case, and they will answer all your questions and help you out. How I understand you, it must be hard for you. When I was dealing with all these issues in the construction of my house, my head was boiling just from all the nuances that I encountered, to put it mildly. I then realized that it's quite a complicated business; it requires patience and absolute seriousness.
 
Digest this, it should straighten you out:
 
Back
Top