RE: My Basement ground system: Your opinions

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Gary.Lau-at-hp-dot-com>

I believe the reason to not use hot water pipes for a ground is that there
is typically something resembling a water heater between the hot water pipe
and the upstream pipe where it enters the earth.  In a 3rd wire ground
application, you don't want to be passing fault currents through your water
heater or furnace!

In the application that began this thread, the pipes go directly from the
TC connection point into the concrete mass.  Assuming that the buried pipes
are copper with soldered fittings, I would say that this would constitute a
very good RF ground.  But I would use this strictly for an RF ground, not
something subject to 60 Hz fault currents.

Regards, Gary Lau
MA, USA

> Hot water pipes are NEVER a good source of ground.