Ground Ring length 20' or around the building.

[AK GUY]

I submit that it is the intent of NEC Article 250.52 (A) (4) that the ground ring be a minimum of 20' long buried at a minimum of 30', period. Not that if you chose to use a ground ring instead of one of the other electrodes it must encircle the entire building. What if you achieved a resistance to ground of 15 ohms with 20' of #2 in the ground, must you continue to encircle the building. I do understand that under curtain conditions, say at a substation, it would be advisable but not at a single family dwelling or a small commercial building. What say the Pro's.

 

[jumper]

It says what it says:

(4) Ground Ring. A ground ring encircling the building or
structure, in direct contact with the earth, consisting of at
least 6.0 m (20 ft) of bare copper conductor not smaller
than 2 AWG.

 

[infinity]

It has to go completely around the building. One reason why I would never install one. :roll:

 

[jumper]

Where is Curtiss/CEB58? I bet he is gonna bring up the dreaded RG-56.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

There is no technical reason that the ground ring has to encircle the structure...just a code reason. In fact, if you have a structure small enough that you can encircle it with 20' of wire, the resistance of that ground ring would be less than running that same 20' of wire in a straight line. This would be the same as when you install ground rods closer together than twice the rod length....the resistance is not as low as it would be with the rods spaced twice their length apart.

 

[tom baker]

Simple solution. Run 20ft of 2 AWG and install a ground rod at the end.