Its function is to make the designer feel better about the design and makes more money for the installer. It does not have much to do with electrical safety at all.
The ground fault path is always thru the EGC. In fact, the code forbids using the earth as a GF path.
I thought lightening was DC
I have a IEEE study that evaluates the use of reinforcing steel in a concrete foundation for lightning protection. My conclusion from the study is that a street light pole base with reinforcing steel is effective as a ground for protection from lightning. The IEEE study is copyrighted so I cannot post it.
Under that thinking, then a ufer ground is useless too? How’s that for critical thinking!
If bonded to the pole, then yes, it would be just as or more effective than a ground rod. But I haven’t seen any normal pole base specs requiring that bond.
That makes no sense. I said nothing about the effectiveness of an ufer. If a light pole is already bolted to an ufer, why add a ground rod? And if you really think lightning will change what it does because of the presence or lack of a ground rod, well I have this really really nice bridge in NYC I'm selling for cheap.....
That exactly what I think and I was watching a video where Mike Holt reject the use of ground rod in lighting pole. Can you specify some scenario where light pole require own GES?
I don't think there is really any standard. I have only prepped the bases for a few light poles, and I did put a ring of bar around the anchor bolts and tie that to a few verticals.
I agree, when I was doing street lighting and traffic signals, we always did that. Then we did change to pulling a grounding conductor back to the service, because of the new 170 electronic controllers were picking up noise from the many ground rods. One ground rod is enough at the service.
That's interesting... Is that because they weren't all connected to a common reference allowing for a resistive fluctuation of some sort.
But the light pole is not already connected to the ufer, the anchor bolts are dropped in after the pour on top of the Sonotube.They are not physically tied to the rebar. Concrete by itself is not a good conductor, it’s the moisture concrete draws. (Caught autocorrect trying to change Sonotube to snottiness) LOL!
Well dirt isn't a good conductor either. If it makes you sleep better at night then make sure the anchor bolts are connected to the rebar cage
On commercial light poles, they mount the anchor bolts in a plywood pattern, then after the concrete is poured, the whole assembly is pushed into the wet concrete, and sits on top of the Sonotube to hold it in place.
