TerraFill

[cjcrawfo]

All,

Recently I had issues with grounding in East TN due to the type of soil which seemed to have no good solution. We were trying everything to get the impeadance down to acceptable levels. less than 5 Ohms.

TerraFill made me a believer. I have never used this material before but I now have seen it work! This stuff comes in 50 LB bags and requires no mixing. Just dump it in the holes and cover.

We had a site at more than 100 Ohms. We used TerraFill and came back three days later and we were down below 10!

Here is a link to some info. http://www.allteccorp.com/products/pdf/2004-TerraFill.pdf

 

[charlie b]

Re: TerraFill

We have to be careful with this discussion. An endorsement of a specific product line is close to, if not actually beyond, the purposes of this forum.

Just out of curiosity, how were you taking the resistance measurements? ?Fall of Potential Method??

 

[peter]

Re: TerraFill

Indeed there is some sort of line between blatant advertising and kudos due to a fine product. I think this is a case of the latter. If I had a problem with grounding resistance, I would be interested in unsolicited information such as this. cjcrawfo presnts himself as a ex-electrician now engineer and has 20 other posts to his credit.
The purpose of these forums is to spread education and knowledge and I feel his post is an effort in this direction.
However I should mention that Gerald Newton's Electrical forum has been destroyed by relentless spammers. But then he didn't use a staff of fine moderators.
~Peter

 

[jimwalker]

Re: TerraFill

i have great respect for Mike Holt and his help,they do a fine job
it is a fine line to follow if one is using this forum for wrong reasons but if one has an unknown product then i think i would like the info

[ July 12, 2004, 09:42 PM: Message edited by: jimwalker ]

 

[charlie]

Re: TerraFill

Gentlemen, let's not lose sight of the fact that Charlie just interjected a small warning and did not pull the post. In the past, we have removed advertisements and even e-mail addresses as a form of advertisement. Charlie let this go and I agree with him. Let's let go of the warning and ruffled feathers and continue with the discussion.

I would like to see Charlie's question answered, "Just out of curiosity, how were you taking the resistance measurements? ?Fall of Potential Method??"

Additionally, I suspect there is more information to be gained from this thread. Now, I hope I am not taken as being to abrasive, that was not my intent.

 

[charlie b]

Re: TerraFill

Let me explain the reason for my question. First, we should all and always be a bit hesitant to accept any claims of a miracle product, especially if the claims were made by the vendor. In this case, we have an experienced electrician (and now engineer) testifying to the success of one project that used that product. I applaud the sharing of that type of information. But I still find myself being hesitant, because there are things about the product that I do not yet know.

This product appears to cause a very good electrical contact between itself and the ground rod. But the product also must make contact with planet Earth. The function of a ground rod is to provide an electrical path from a point within the electrical distribution system to planet Earth. If cjcrawfo were to tell us that a ?Before and After? series of ground resistance tests were made, and that both the Before and the After used the Fall of Potential Method, my hesitations would be greatly reduced. That specific test uses a probe some great distance from the ground rod (i.e., not in contact with, and indeed well beyond the immediate influence of, the TerraFill product). Considering the distance from the outside of the ground rod to the outside of the hole in which the TerraFill was poured, the probe used by the Fall of Potential Method is at an essentially ?infinite? distance. In other words, it would provide a true picture of the difference in ground resistance that the product was able to achieve.

If some other method had been used to measure ground resistance, I would be interested to find out whether that method had measured not only the resistance of the physical contact between the product and the ground rod, but also the resistance of the combined electrical path formed by the product and the surrounding dirt.

By way of counter-example, suppose a person tried to measure ground resistance by clipping one ohmmeter terminal to the ground rod and the other to a 12 inch metal probe. Suppose that the ?Before? measurement was taken by sticking the 12 inch probe into the dirt 2 inches away from the ground rod. Suppose next that the ?After? measurement was taken by sticking the 12 inch probe the same 2 inches away from the ground rod, but this time that distance caused the probe to go into the product, and not into dirt. I would not be at all surprised if the ground resistance measurement improved significantly. But neither would this convince me of the value of the product.

And so I ask again, how were the ground resistance measurements taken?

 

[tom baker]

Re: TerraFill

Peter, thanks. I recall Newtons site and didn't know the latest.
Regaring the product, several companies make a similar product and now here is another I haven't heard of. Discussing the merits of this product is not much different than discussing problems with Zinsco.