Ufer ground... still need ground rods?

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I don't remember where, so-cal I think, but recently somebody drove a ground rod into a gas line. Shortly thereafter the home owner flipped a switch and the whole house went 'boom', I think there were fatalities. Not a huge fan of ground rods!

I have pushed for foundation grounds (Ufer's) when available, which to me is anytime a foundation is getting poured. Had a contractor tell me he was just going to do it after because his electrician was out of town, by do it after he meant drive two ground rods. I denied his inspection and he threw a fit! Got my boss on the phone and said I was making erroneous code calls and nobody else here requires this, etc... Fortunately my boss knows code and backed me up. Turned out to be no big deal, his neighbor had extra copper and some clamps, they got it on in time and got their foundation poured.
 
I was kinda before my time, when I built my house in ‘92, I did the ufer ground, no ground rods. If we had inspections at that time, the inspector would probably looked at me funny! I was doing them on new construction commercial, and thought it was a good idea. WalMart spec’d them for every transformer in the building and the service.
 
Foundation grounds are far superior in so many ways. I've seen so many ground rods with the wire sitting inches away, either cut or broken, or possibly the heat/cold cycles releasing the clamp. "Ufer" is the last name of an Army Corp Engineer who conceived the foundation ground as a way to solve the grounding issues in extremely dry/sandy conditions. From what I read a proper foundation ground far exceeds what ground rods can do for safety.
 
James L said:
We have a few POCOs in the KCMO metro area...
Ameren
Evergy
Independence P & L
Board of Public Utilities (KCKS)
Platt-Clay Electric

They all have variations, but Evergy is the loosest...
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Evergy took over KCP&L, right?

I'm running out of brain cells to keep track of mergers and acquisitions...never had many to begin with. :LOL:
 
Joe.B said:
I don't remember where, so-cal I think, but recently somebody drove a ground rod into a gas line. Shortly thereafter the home owner flipped a switch and the whole house went 'boom', I think there were fatalities. Not a huge fan of ground rods!
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That's why you call J.U.L.I.E., which stands for Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators, although few people ever do unless it's a big project. Technically we're supposed to do it prior to ANY digging.

I dunno if you guys have anything like that, but I think it's pretty cool that there is a free service like this in IL.
Dare I suggest that SOME Illinois tax dollars are actually be well-spent? *GASP*
 
Jerramundi said:
That's why you call J.U.L.I.E., which stands for Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators, although few people ever do unless it's a big project. Technically we're supposed to do it prior to ANY digging.

I dunno if you guys have anything like that, but I think it's pretty cool that there is a free service like this in IL.
Dare I suggest that SOME Illinois tax dollars are actually be well-spent? *GASP*
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All states have that and there is a national "one call number" of 811.

No taxpayer money supports the "one call" services. It is funded by the utilities who have underground systems. The utilities are billed by JULIE based on call volume. After JULIE gets the dig information, they distribute it to to any utility members who may have underground facilities at the location of the proposed dig. The utility, or a contractor hired by the utility will do the actual locate.

One AT&T cable splicer told me that he started getting a lot more overtime for dig in repairs after AT&T outsourced their locates to a locating company. That was right after I dug up a 300 pair cable, at least 20' away from the locate marks!
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
All states have that and there is a national "one call number" of 811.

No taxpayer money supports the "one call" services. It is funded by the utilities who have underground systems. The utilities are billed by JULIE based on call volume. After JULIE gets the dig information, they distribute it to to any utility members who may have underground facilities at the location of the proposed dig. The utility, or a contractor hired by the utility will do the actual locate.

One AT&T cable splicer told me that he started getting a lot more overtime for dig in repairs after AT&T outsourced their locates to a locating company. That was right after I dug up a 300 pair cable, at least 20' away from the locate marks!
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That's when the locate request confirmation number is more valuable than the winning lottery numbers.
 
gadfly56 said:
That's when the locate request confirmation number is more valuable than the winning lottery numbers.
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Our locates are only good for 14 days. A result of weather conditions, my original locate had expired. So happy I called for a renew on the locate before I dug up that cable.

As a side note, after I dug up the cable, I called AT&T to try to report the dig-in....they told me that only the customer can report that problem...I asked how they could do that with the cable cut...she just said sorry, I could not report the dig-in and hung up on me. Not sure who ended up reporting the cut, but there was a cable splicer there in about an hour.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Our locates are only good for 14 days. A result of weather conditions, my original locate had expired. So happy I called for a renew on the locate before I dug up that cable.

As a side note, after I dug up the cable, I called AT&T to try to report the dig-in....they told me that only the customer can report that problem...I asked how they could do that with the cable cut...she just said sorry, I could not report the dig-in and hung up on me. Not sure who ended up reporting the cut, but there was a cable splicer there in about an hour.
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Wish I could get a splicer to show up in an hour. We used to. In the old days, if a CenturyLink cable was damaged by a contractor that could be billed for it, the whole army showed up fast. If a cable had, say, a rodent problem, it would take several days to get service restored. I guess the mice just don't pay up when billed. ;) I also began to suspect slow repairs happened when CenturyLink folks would accidentally break something.

In July, a cable was severed along a highway that killed phone/internet to one of my sites. I called it in and had a chat with the guys who cut the cable, standing next to a power splice box surrounded by flags and paint stripes. Service was restored 4 days later. Very unhappy. I suppose we're the only customer left on the cable...
 
Never heard it called Julie, but never work under somebody else’s locate. If the plumber called in a locate in the same location your digging, and you hit something, even if the locate service missed marking it, your still hung with it if the locate is not in your name. One of our foreman learned that the hard way!
 
hillbilly1 said:
Never heard it called Julie, but never work under somebody else’s locate. If the plumber called in a locate in the same location your digging, and you hit something, even if the locate service missed marking it, your still hung with it if the locate is not in your name. One of our foreman learned that the hard way!
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That was the original name here in Illinois. Not sure if other states ever used that name.
J.U.L.I.E. (Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators)
 
Here it's called USA, Underground Service Alert and yes, you call 811. I think the name is inappropriate, "Call USA" but I don't get paid to have opinions.
 
I remember in the soares book he claimed rods were not very useful.
What do you guys think about the new use of plastic water mains
everywhere!

now if potential breaks thru and is touching a point on the equipotential plane, it gets the whole installation
 
the only reason ground rods [uffer, h20 etc] do anything, as I understand it,
is because every tx has 25' of #4 Cu under the pole in the mud
tied to the center tap xfmr
which gives every water pipe a chance to reach center point thru the mud
 
hillbilly1 said:
Never heard it called Julie, but never work under somebody else’s locate. If the plumber called in a locate in the same location your digging, and you hit something, even if the locate service missed marking it, your still hung with it if the locate is not in your name. One of our foreman learned that the hard way!
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X2, same thing happened to a friend
 
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