How to Easily Sink a Ground Rod

I have been an electrician for 50 years. Your method only works in 2% of the situations I have experienced.

I’m in the Rocky Mountains. You bury ground rods. The soils are too rocky to drive them. I watched a contractor from outside the area, use a hammer drill to attempt driving a ground rod for a helicopter pad. I told him it was a bad idea. He stood in the back of his pickup, and started driving the rod. He had it driven about 3/4 of the way in, when we heard a hissing sound. The rod had deflected of some rocks, and looped back. Coming up into the rear tire on the opposite side of his truck. I called the electrical engineer, and got permission to install the ground rods horizontally.

Yep it works. Put new service in my shop. Asked my old buddy Nick, how am i going to get that 8 foot ground rod driven in, Nick was an old lineman, climbed poles, set transformers etc, then he went to engineering. He told me to get a bucket of water, get rod started, pour water in hole, up and down, more water, keep it wet. I have good dirt, couple of feet down before clay, rocks mixed throughout. Could feel rod going around rocks, couple of taps and was nearly flush with ground. Works in my dirt. Now when doing my ground lead, had procured a length of copper wire. Story in itself, neighbor was a scrapper, while mowing my ditch i wound a long length of bare copper wire on my mower spindle. I claimed it, I removed it, it was mine. When i put ground in I retrieved it to use. Not number 6, was number 2. Stiff stuff to use, but overkill. I have a good ground wire and the price was right.

No problem in soft ground. Gravely ground is still a problem.

I've driven a lot of these as a former cable TV tech. If you put a cap on the bottom of the rod that is slightly thicker than the rod it makes it so much easier. We used cable security caps but I think a copper plumbing end cap would work as well. What it does is widen the soil slightly larger than the rod creating a lot less resistance. Also, if you use a driver (We would have a welder attach a 2 inch pipe to a piece of steel.) The pipe was about 3' long so you didn't need a ladder. After getting it most of the way down you flip the driver around and use it as a large sledgehammer. The other advantage to widening out the soil is if you hit something and have to pull the rod out it was pretty easy.

Dude, I used to install satellite dishes and we were required to drive ground rods, typically two to three a day. I’ve run into the rock problem before and horizontal is the best for that but try a glue or two out of a bottle of windshield washer fluid, it will slide into the ground slicker than anything. Even works on frozen ground

Put your clamp on before switching to the hammer

Central Texas Caliche begs to differ...

So, did you put in the second ground rod required by NEC if you didn’t test to prove the 25 ohm resistance?

I have seen this done where a shallow depression (6-8 inches) was filled with water and then thrusting the rod into the depression as shown.

It may not work everywhere but it's certainly worth trying in case it does work. Around here we've got a nasty mix of glacial till containing pebbles, small stones, and HEAVY clay. Trying to poke a hole of any depth is a frustrating process. You may get down a couple feet and hit a rock. So move a foot over and try again. Maybe it'll be better, or maybe you'll hit a rock at 6 inches, or maybe it's a whopping big boulder and you're out of luck for a several foot radius ;)

I like to get them a little closer to the house, hopefully not hit the footing. That was pretty slick.

Not an electrician, but I am four for four by this method, minus the hammering part! The ground in my area is virgin red clay once you are below the couple of inches of topsoil. (Your mileage may vary with different soil types.) On the first rod I drove, I started with a hammer and soon decided I was going to get tendonitis somewhere before I ever finished even one--and code required I do two for my house! Seemed like it was moving less than 1/4" per blow... When I switched to this method, I had the rod planted in like 10 minutes or less. As noted by another comment, you should start with an 8 to 12 inch hole. That way you (a) can pour some water in and it stays there, though it will get used up making mud (b) you can drive the rod completely below grade bare handed and still have plenty of room to do your connection, and (c) the end of your rod won't be mashed up for your clamp or cadweld if you have one. Not long after I did my house, a friend came asking for help with the same problem and I did two rods for him in no time. The key is don't jam that rod in too hard before you try to withdraw and let the water in--you'll get it stuck and strain something getting it loose. Just push it in some, even a few inches, and pull it out, letting the water do its part, and you will be done in no time...if you don't hit a rock. And don't jam that rod too quickly into a water filled bore or you will get some muddy water squirted in your face!

Looks good. I'm thinking though that shoveling a few inches deep depression would help concentrate the water next to the rod and help keep a more constant flow going.

Use a " T " post driver, works great !

from the size of your house, in my town you would be required to have ground on each end of house and in middle. (3) There is no way for inspector to see if 8 ft in ground as required by code. You have your receipt of purchase showing 8 ft rod, drive in the river rock as deep as you can, saw off for inspection and then are passed as inspector can see the rod. Inspectors around here it would seem are revenue collectors not for safety. $200 for this, $200 for that, and for good measure another $200. Like if you add an extra board to the construction, you have to get an inspection. Contractors take on many jobs at once so they can hop around from one to another waiting for inspections to be done so they can continue on what was first. I have seen inspectors drive up to site, look from the vehicle, sign the paper and are gone within 5 minutes. Never went in the house. I asked contactor once, how did you get away with inspector not looking at anything. "Inspector knows me, he knows I do good work". We have houses 60 years old still standing that would not pass inspection but 5 year old houses falling apart that did pass. When looking at houses to buy to live in I looked at many new that were already falling apart. I ended up buying one put up in 1972 that was built heavy duty, not save the forests cheap. I still live in it.

Here in NH, I always seem to hit BIG rocks after 2-3 feet.....

Worst case I had was for a hv transformer which needed 4 ten foot rods into solid rock…the inspector allowed me to bore 4 2 inch holes..,dropped the rods into the hole filled the holes with wine purifier(benzite sp?) the ground rods stuck 1 foot out of ground added 2 ft of organic soil (clay/top soil mix) after interconnecting the 4 ground rods …we also had to add a grounding mat for switching to make sure there was no issues with step n touch …

The method you are using is one I was shown over 40 years ago. I have sank at least 6 grounding rods in the exact same way as you have shown. It really does work.

Another advantage of this method is the mud settles around the rod making the best possible contact.