wrote:
This is not all that difficult. In your photo, the split bolt - which
is the thing that looks like a horseshoe with a nut around it (center
of photo). You need one of them intended for the thickness of the
wire you have. Then buy several feet of that same guage (thickness)
wire. Enough so you can run it from the broken off piece at the
house, to the ground rod. Loosen the clamp on the ground rod, remov
the broken piece, and insert your new wire. Use that splitbolt to
connect the new wire to the broken off piece coming out of the house.
Overlap the wires by several inches and tighten securely. If you dont
want that wire on an angle above the ground, just use more wire so you
can press it tight against the house.

BETTER YET, run your new wire into the hole in the house where the
present wire exits, and use the splitbolt INDOORS where the wires meet
near your foundation. You will get a better connection indoors since
there wont be corrosion in later years.

You could also replace the whole wire from the ground rod to your
breaker box, but I'd just do the splice inside the basement. (caulk
around the new wire where it enters the house).

Do this SOON. Right now you are NOT protected against lightning
strikes and other electrical failures. Do not wait. Spring is
notorious for lightning.

I wonder how much damage your tiller got????

PS. If you dont know the gauge of the wire, take a piece to a
reputable hardware store and tell them how many feet you need. GET
ENOUGH, you need to overlap it, and may want to bury some of it, etc.
Then tell him you want a SPLITBOLT (actual name of them), to fit that
gauge of wire.


On 2 Apr 2007 12:57:27 -0700, "SMcK" wrote:

Saturday, while roto-tilling a neglected area next to our house, I
accidentally severed the ground wire coming from the house to the
metal pole that's sunk down into the ground. There's more wire
running from the first pole to a second. That wire is intact, but
that's meaningless since the first section is severed. I went to
Lowe's and picked up one of the clamps shown in the lower right of
this pictu

http://www.endtimesreport.com/pictur...und_clamps.jpg

My initial thought was that I could put the two ends of the broken
cable through this and clamp them together. The hole was too big so I
flipped the lower piece to form a nested V shape and clamped the cable
together between the Vs. The two cables touch where they overlap, and
(one assumes) are also electrically connected by the clamp itself. So
I *think* the house is back to being grounded.

Eventually I'll get an electrician out to see if I can get some more
slack in that cable - I want to put a deck in that area and I can't do
it with a ground wire stretched from the house to the pole, suspended
a few inches above the ground as it is currently.

Do any of you electrical experts see this as a problem that needs to
be addressed more expertly and immediately? Anyone think it's
something I can handle myself?

-Scott

Scott
You need to reestablish the grounding connection ASAP. The best way to
do that is to run a new Grounding Electrode Conductor (GEC) between the
bonded neutral buss bar in the service equipment enclosure and that
first rod. For a temporary fix you can use a splice block that is
suitable for direct burial. Those are about two to three inches long
for size six conductor so it may make up for the missing length.

You are being given bad information about the prohibition on spicing.
Only the GEC itself may not be spliced. The GEC is run to the nearest
electrode of the grounding electrode system. In your case that is the
first rod. From that first electrode additional bonding conductors
sized for the electrodes they will connect can be run to other
electrodes. A GEC conductor must be large enough for the largest
required GEC for the electrodes it serves.
--
Tom Horne