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ground rods




>As long as you are physically able to sink them into the ground, I 
>expect the stainless steel tubing should be an excellent choice.  You 
>won't have to worry about corrosion.  Sure, S.S. is not as good a 
>conductor as copper, but neither is soil.  I heard of a trick of 
>hooking up water pressure from a garden hose to allow one to bury 
>soft copper water pipe.
	I'd avoid this, if practical, for ground rods.  If the objective is to
	have intimate long term contact with the ground, 'jetting them in'
	as its called, may well loosen the soil up.  If tried, keep water
	pressure down.

	ON THE OTHER HAND...

	In any tubing based ground system, it might be interesting to rig them
	for the additions of water (low pressure) as an ongoing practice.
	This is a semi standard trick in commercial grounding practice, esp.
	for difficult grounding conditions.

	The 'copperclad' grounds are used becuase ofthey are cheaper (and easier
	to drive) than solid copper or bronze.  If the stainless is 'free', i
	say "gofer it".

	(It turns out that iron, etc, make dandy ground rods, for lighting work.
	apparently the large surface area out ways the 'inductive' effects.
	Copper is used, too, but the inductive effects seem to be not a
	serious block to the use of iron/stainless/etc.)


	regards
	dwp