Ground rod at Exterior Light Pole

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Around here, like you'll said, some utility companies require it & others do not. Just wondering, since the pole has a but ground & then a ground rod is installed at the pole, is this a code violation by having 2 grounds within a foot of each other?
 
JDB3 said:
Around here, like you'll said, some utility companies require it & others do not. Just wondering, since the pole has a but ground & then a ground rod is installed at the pole, is this a code violation by having 2 grounds within a foot of each other?
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Not IMO. The 6' rule appliesto the secondary electrode to a >25 ohm (first) rod.
In your described case, one is the service, and one is for the transformer secondary ground.
 
We wired a house 22 years ago that had a street light at the end of the yard, about 40' from the main panel on the house. About two years later the street light got struck by lightning. It was amazing how many things in the house were damaged, all the electronics,TV,stereo,computers, all the GFI outlets.
 
I agree the concrete base is probably a much better ground than a ground rod would be. And the ground rod probably won't provide any benefit.

But doesn't a pole and base require a ground rod since it's considered a separate structure?
 
Dennis Alwon said:
With ground rods a lot has to do with soil conditions etc. Obviously the lower the ohms the better the rod. Theoretically it is suppose to help with lightning strikes, surges, etc and it may help some in some areas but generally they are a waste because of the high resistance. Heck the pole is probably a better rod then the rod. :)
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I have seen strikes with and without ground rods, and couldn't tell the difference, in both cases the lightning will for some reason try to follow the circuit conductors back to the building almost every time, destroying the underground feed, ballast, and what ever controls the lights have, and even sometimes the breaker, and electronics in the building, had one blow the breaker panel cover off and the two-pole breaker for the parking lot lights landed accross the room. and that was with ground rods at all 4 poles, many times the impedance of the ground rod and bonding conductor at 1 to 10 megacycles is so high the lightning strike doesn't even see its pathway, when you start doing the impedance calculations of them at around 1 to 10 megacycles which most strikes center around, you start seeing the impedance problem, but the circuit conductors can even have a lower impedance if they wind up close to the wave length of the strike.

Around here we don't see much in the spec's for them, but I remember in Florida, it was very common like Jim says.
 
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Electron_Sam78 said:
No that's GROUNDING. Look at article 100 definitions and don't contribute to the misunderstanding of grounding and bonding by misusing the terms.
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I doubt if I have confused anyone here.
 
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