Another way is to use a fence post driver available at many Lowe's and
Home Depot store or nearly any farm and ranch supply store. It is a 2-3
foot piece of pipe sealed on one end with handles on the side. Also
generally won't mess up the end of the ground rod like a sledge hammer
that makes it hard to get a copper clamp over the end. You'll have to
use a sledge hammer the last 2-3 feet.
If you have a plant root feeder hooked up a hose and letting water run
at a trickle or something maybe a little faster through the root feeder
for a day or two really softens up the "black gumbo" heavy clay soil we
have here in North Texas.
I once discovered a minor drip in a faucet near where I was putting in
an 8 foot ground rod in a flower bed and apparently the faucet had
dripped so long that I was able to shove the ground rod in by hand 5-6
feet (really) and just had to lightly pound the top a few times to get
it to the point where less than a foot was out of the ground. Yes, I
had wondered why my water bill had gone up the previous couple of months.
Tom, WW5L
Bill Coleman wrote:
> On Aug 14, 2006, at 1:32 AM, Allen R. Brier wrote:
>
>
>>What is the best/easiest method to sink ground rods? I know the
>>trick of
>>using water to fill the hole several times to make it easy, but I
>>have also
>>heard that the ground contact is not as good using this method vs.
>>pounding
>>the rod in the hard way, in dry ground. Which is best?
>
>
> The best way is to pound them in. Doing that can be tricky. It all
> depends on the soil. I put a couple of ground rods in at W4AN (SK)'s
> superstation in Dahlonegah, GA. Soil there was undisturbed forest
> floor. The ground rods could be pushed almost a foot, and hammered in
> with a 20 oz hammer all but the last two feet. Really soft ground.
>
> Most of Georgia isn't like that -- around Atlanta it is hard clay.
> Back in the mid-80s, I broke three sledgehammer handles trying to put
> two ground rods in during a drought. After that, I built a tool.
>
> My ground rod driving tool consists of a 12" steel pipe nipple with
> two couplers and a plug on one end. To this, I added a couple of
> collars and 15 lbs from a set of dumbell weights. The result is a 15
> lb hammer with about a 1 foot throw that cannot miss.
>
> It only takes about 10 minutes to put in a ground rod with this
> device, even in the hardest clay soil.
>
> When I put up my tower five years ago, putting in the four ground
> rods was a snap.
>
> Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr@arrl.net
> Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
> -- Wilbur Wright, 1901
>
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>
>
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