When building a house, you should remember many things and plan individual stages of operation very carefully. One of the mandatory requirements is to perform foundation earthing. What is it, how to make it properly and what materials to use?
How to properly perform foundation grounding?
The foundation grounding plays a very important role, it allows you to effectively protect the house's lightning protection and electrical installations , ensuring the safety of the entire building. In practice, it is made of a special tape or rod that is embedded in the foundation. The installation in the shape of a rectangle or several smaller ones is performed in the load-bearing walls of a given building in the case of facilities with an area of up to 20 m2; in larger buildings, it may be necessary to extend the installation and place appropriate elements also in the internal walls, in accordance with the design. The close proximity to the ground means that by installing an earth electrode in the foundation, the minimum resistance needed for protection is obtained, which could not be achieved using a horizontal installation. Another big advantage is that the foundation installation ensures a stable and constant resistance value in all conditions. It doesn't matter what the conditions are outside, the values here are constant. Contrary to appearances, it is also a very economical solution - once it has been installed, it does not require any future intervention as long as the entire system is installed correctly.
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A part of the installation must always be led outside, most often in the room where the foundation installation will be connected to the main grounding bus.
This solution has many advantages, first of all it is extremely durable and its maximum service life is the same as that of the entire building, so it is worth investing in grounding using good quality products. The selection of materials is crucial in this case because it allows you to avoid problems, especially in the part of the installation leading out of the ground, i.e. the connection to the vertical earthing and lightning rods. An attempt to save on materials may in this case result in the creation of galvanic cells at the connection point or cause the material to corrode faster.
Types of grounding
The lightning protection installation installed in the foundation is a designed system of wires that are intended to ensure proper grounding of the electrical installation. It also allows for equalizing differences in electrical potentials and ensures safety in connection with lightning protection. Currently, the design and construction of the foundation earth electrode is planned already at the design stage, therefore, after the system is completed, the entire system is poured with concrete with specific properties. Thanks to this, the properties of the system at the point of contact between the installation and the ground are improved. Additionally, pouring the installation with concrete protects individual components and contacts against corrosion.
In practice, there are two variants of foundation grounding. The first one is natural earthing, which is made of foundation reinforcement. Elements made of steel, if properly connected and constructed to provide mechanical and electrical strength. The second variant is artificial foundation grounding. In this variant, a special cable or a special system is placed inside the foundations, which is not a structural element of the building.
Ring and vertical grounding in an existing building
In buildings that have already been constructed and no foundation earthing has been used, it is necessary to consider installing a ring installation. It is located outside the building. It creates a closed loop around the object. Such an installation should be placed below the ground surface, at a level below the ground frost, at least half a meter below the surface. The entire structure should be buried at a distance of at least 1 m from the walls of the structure. To make a ring earth electrode, special flat conductors made of copper, copper-coated steel, hot galvanized steel or stainless steel are used.
When performing vertical earthing, either pipes or specially prepared rods are used. They are dug below the ground surface in such a way that the upper edge is below ground level. The distance from each other that they will be placed depends primarily on their length. As a rule, it is assumed that the distance between subsequent points cannot be less than the length of the element. This type of grounding is worth using where the soil resistance decreases with depth. If the resistance is too high, it is recommended to make an additional vertical element, which is placed parallel to the first element and connected to it.
Materials for making an earth electrode are available at the Onninen installation wholesaler
Nowadays, making an earth electrode is no longer such a difficult task. In newly constructed facilities, you can use special sets, such as a complete 3-meter earth electrode . However, a big advantage is that various types of elements are available from manufacturers and specialist stores, allowing for the implementation of a complete lightning protection installation. Tapes of various widths, aluminum masts , spiers , connectors and clamps . All parts allow you to create a complete, high-quality lightning protection installation.
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