Epsom salts are available at Walmart or similar or drug stores or
supermarkets in one pound or less containers.
Snow melt comes in 50 lb and smaller sizes and is sodium chloride,
potassium chloride and sometimes other stuff and is a good conductivity
enhancer.
Shelf life? Bentonite has infinite shelf life when dry.
Pot life is how long it remains workable after mixing with water.
I have never mixed bentonite with cement so can't comment on that. I
have seen granular Styrofoam mixed into concrete in place of aggregate
and it produced fairly strong concrete patio tables and benches that
when tossed into the swimming pool float indefinitely.
I put a few tons into a pond along its dam which leaks water
underground (but I don't know where) and apparently missed "THE SPOT."
Patrick NJ5G
On 1/19/2016 9:29 AM, jimlux wrote:
I know the literature is full of using bentonite as a conductivity
enhancer. I wonder if there are other substances that may be more
readily available in smallish quantities that would work as well.
Bentonite is mined by the thousands of tons, and has lots of
industrial uses (drilling mud, cat litter, impervious clay liners for
ponds, etc.). And when people were looking for something to dump into
the hole with the ground rod, they probably had it around, so that's
what got used.
I assume it's cheaper than concrete (if for no other reason than you
can deliver it in a dump truck, as opposed to a mixer truck, and it
doesn't have a very short "shelf life" after mixing).
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