grounding temporary structure

[sidder]

I have temporary party tents that i set up for functions at houses ,businesses and fairs.The tent has metal poles to hold up the canvas and i have add a string of lights that plug in,the light are onley 2-wire (no ground off of factory wired cord).

The question i have is it required to ground
each tent pole to earth by means of a ground rod
for the purpose of a lightning strike,and if so were would i find this

 

[russ]

Re: grounding temporary structure

525.30(3)may require the metal tent poles to be bonded to an equipment ground from the lighting circuit.

 

[iwire]

Re: grounding temporary structure

I saw a video on the TV show "Real TV" of a 6 to 8 year old boy getting electrocuted by touching a tent pole that was energized by some DJ equipment connected to it.

No one noticed for a quite a few seconds and the boy could not let go, luckily someone finally noticed and pushed him away.

It was disturbing to say the least, and if the pole had been grounded this shock probably could have been prevented.

A ground rod will not help if the lighting circuit energizes the pole, a connection to the equipment ground as Russ pointed out would be more effective.

 

[hurk27]

Re: grounding temporary structure

I have installed ground rod one at each end of a tent and ran a #2 from one rod to the other across the top of the tent bonding it to the tent poles along the way and when installing the 4 plex receptacle we would mount it to a pole with 2 ground clamps so the egc would be also bonded to the poles. but these tents were made with conduit framing with tarps accross them. most other tents we did had wooden poles. but we still ran the two ground rods with the bare #2 across the top for lighning protection.

[ June 01, 2003, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: hurk27 ]