# Stainless Steel ground rods



## Skipp (May 23, 2010)

Does any other city besides Huntington Beach require stainless steel ground rods? The local Home Depot has both types of ground rods. But the SS rods cost 10 times as much.


----------



## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Stainless?! Holy chit. The rod will outlast the house.

-John


----------



## erics37 (May 7, 2009)

Haven't heard of anything like that in Oregon. If there was any place that would require them, it would be here on the coast cause the soil we drive them into is half salted beach sand. But regular ol' ground rods suffice here.

Seems like kinda overkill.

Is there a stainless steel ground rod factory in Huntington Beach, perhaps? :001_huh:


----------



## JmanAllen (Aug 3, 2011)

Never even heard of SS ground rods

Sent from my iPhone using ET Forum


----------



## Skipp (May 23, 2010)

erics37 said:


> Haven't heard of anything like that in Oregon. If there was any place that would require them, it would be here on the coast cause the soil we drive them into is half salted beach sand. But regular ol' ground rods suffice here.
> 
> Seems like kinda overkill.
> 
> Is there a stainless steel ground rod factory in Huntington Beach, perhaps? :001_huh:


 LOL, No, but alot of surfboard factories. The city makes it very hard to start any business here. Unless it's a brewery, bar or Mcdonalds. Yet the south end of town is the county sanitation treatment plant, Ascon superfund toxic waste site and 450 megawatt steam generator plant.The residents are mostly stuck up douchebags who complain about everything. The neighborhood soccer moms protested when verizon was building a cell tower 200 yards from a school. They even collected signitures for a ballot measure to ban cell towers in the city. Then they complain about their cell phones weak signal. 

Here is the cities explaination about SS rods:

_Listed stainless steel ground rods are required in Huntington beach due to corrosive soil conditions. HBMC 17.48.040_
_When electrical services are upgraded, the grounding electrode system must also be upgraded. If there is no concrete encased electrode (ufer) available, a listed stainless steel ground shall be driven eight feet into the soil as close as practicable to the service location. The interior water piping system shall be bonded to the new service equipment._
_







_
_When the water service pipe in the yard is replaced, a listed stainless ground rod shall be driven eight fee into the soil at any convenient location. The ground rod shall be connected to the service equipment and to the interior metallic water piping system._
_The size of the grounding electrode conductor shall be in accordance with Article_
_250.66 of the 2007 California Electric Code_.​
​


----------



## erics37 (May 7, 2009)

"corrosive soil conditions" .... Maybe it has something to do with that Superfund site you mentioned :laughing:


----------



## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

Huntington beach is douche bag capitol of the world. And there inspectors are idiots. Really big idiots, one I did in hb i used to ground rods because the water line was PVC, inspector told me it was a waste of time. A buddy of mine got a ticket on a bicycle for not coming tons complete stop at a stop light in hb.


----------



## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

Skipp said:


> Does any other city besides Huntington Beach require stainless steel ground rods? The local Home Depot has both types of ground rods. But the SS rods cost 10 times as much.


Just buy one and bend a 90 on each end. Make sure to put kick in the middle so it wont wobble back and forth. :thumbsup:

This place has them a bit cheaper:
http://www.metalbythefoot.com/index.php?category=Stainless


----------



## [email protected] (Oct 27, 2009)

Skipp, LADWP requires them for their transformers. Main Electric in Los Angeles stocks them.


----------



## ed22 (Jul 4, 2011)

Do the SS rods come with SS cable connectors?


----------



## Mvaldez618 (Dec 2, 2020)

Skipp said:


> Does any other city besides Huntington Beach require stainless steel ground rods? The local Home Depot has both types of ground rods. But the SS rods cost 10 times as much.


I’m doing a panel upgrade in Huntington Beach now. SS ground rod was found at American electric supply in Corona they carry those for $120 😂


----------



## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

NEC. 250.52 (5) (b) identifies three types of acceptable rods. Stainless steel, copper clad steel, or zinc clad steel. 
Local codes can specify which of the three are required , and power company can also due to no competition and do as we say or no hookup. 

I've never seen a stainless steel ground rod before. Very interesting. Does Huntington Beach also require stainless steel metering enclosures? When you clamp a copper gec to a stainless rod, do you use a stainless clamp or do you use a brass or copper clamp? And what codes are broken by that connection?


----------



## Quickservice (Apr 23, 2020)

JmanAllen said:


> Never even heard of SS ground rods
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using ET Forum


Same here... can’t imagine why it would be required regardless of what kind of terrain you had.


----------



## Quickservice (Apr 23, 2020)

ed22 said:


> Do the SS rods come with SS cable connectors?


Great question... seems like a regular acorn clamp would be useless if your soil conditions were that bad.


----------



## macmikeman (Jan 23, 2007)

Quickservice said:


> Great question... seems like a regular acorn clamp would be useless if your soil conditions were that bad.


My guess is the prevailing winds bringing in salt spray from the oceans is the big issue for Huntington Beach codes section authorities and not so much the soil factors , but I might be wrong about that cause after all , it's California and we all know what kind of mental disorder is prevalent there.......


----------



## Quickservice (Apr 23, 2020)

macmikeman said:


> My guess is the prevailing winds bringing in salt spray from the oceans is the big issue for Huntington Beach codes section authorities and not so much the soil factors , but I might be wrong about that cause after all , it's California and we all know what kind of mental disorder is prevalent there.......


Had a family move into our subdivision from California. They said they couldn’t take any more... extremely high taxes... bad schools... bad/weird neighbors... bad local & State government... unreal traffic... power going on and off all the time. The longer we talked the longer the list got. 😱


----------



## Bluejay13760 (5 mo ago)

erics37 said:


> Haven't heard of anything like that in Oregon. If there was any place that would require them, it would be here on the coast cause the soil we drive them into is half salted beach sand. But regular ol' ground rods suffice here. Seems like kinda overkill. Is there a stainless steel ground rod factory in Huntington Beach, perhaps? :001_huh:


 Huntington Beach requires stainless steel ground rods because Huntington Beach use to be all oil fields which caused the soil and ground dirt to be super corrosive with all the contamination from pumping oil.


----------



## Bluejay13760 (5 mo ago)

erics37 said:


> Haven't heard of anything like that in Oregon. If there was any place that would require them, it would be here on the coast cause the soil we drive them into is half salted beach sand. But regular ol' ground rods suffice here.
> 
> Seems like kinda overkill.
> 
> Is there a stainless steel ground rod factory in Huntington Beach, perhaps? :001_huh:


The only reason Huntington Beach requires stainless steel ground rods is not because of the sea salt or because there’s a “ground rod factory” but because Huntington Beach use to be all oil fields. Because of the ground contamination from the oil fields that use to be there it caused the ground to be super corrosive, that’s why Huntington Beach is the only City I know which requires Stainless steel ground rods to be installed.


----------



## Dennis Alwon (May 9, 2009)

The nec requires ground rods however all the info I read says that galvanized rods last 15-20 years. So what happens after that? lol I seriously doubt they just vaporize after that much time but that is what has been tested.

The copper clad rods supposedly last 40 years and stainless 50 years



> For certain situations, stainless steel ground rods may be specified. According to the NEGRP, these ground rods offer a service life of *around 50 years*. In highly corrosive environments—such as at industrial plants or salty environments (e.g. ocean beaches)—stainless steel outlasts copper-bonded ground rods. Oct 30, 2018


----------



## joe-nwt (Mar 28, 2019)

Dennis Alwon said:


> So what happens after that? lol I seriously doubt they just vaporize after that much time but that is what has been tested.


I say they have more surface area due to all the pitting and they therefore work better than ever!


----------

