troy_palmer76•5d agoProlific Poster

Overheard a guy at the supply house saying his panels never fail if he grounds them right

I used to be one of those guys that just slapped in a ground wire and called it good. Figured it was just code compliance BS and didn't matter much for the actual system working. Then I was picking up some resistors at the local supply place in Tampa and heard this old timer telling his apprentice how he's had the same panel running for 12 years with zero service calls. He said the trick is running a dedicated ground rod for the alarm panel separate from the house ground, and bonding it with proper clamps. I always thought that was overkill but I tried it on two installs last month and both systems have been rock solid through some nasty thunderstorms. Has anyone else noticed a big difference with a separate ground rod or am I just getting lucky so far?

2 comments

2 Comments

adams.harper4d agoMost Upvoted

Man, that old timer knew what he was talking about, huh? I gotta ask though, when you say separate ground rod, are you driving it a good 8 feet deep like you're supposed to, or just skimming the surface? I've seen guys slap in a 4 footer and call it a day, and I bet that's where the magic's really at.

casey_lane734d ago

Yeah, I went all the way down to 8 feet on mine... didn't want to mess around with half measures after reading up on it. Grounded my ham radio setup with that deep rod and the noise floor dropped like a rock, totally worth the sweat. Little things like that make all the difference, especially if you're chasing clean signal.