I live in a condominium made of concrete without an electrical ground wire. Is it possible for me to hammer a nail into the concrete wall and attach the ground wire onto the nail. Will this be effective? If not can anyone please suggest a method for me to be able to ground my appliances. Much thanks in advance.My country/city has almost no electrical regulation/laws and the little that we have are barely implemented and never inspected.Safe DIY Guerilla methods are accepted
Wisdumb, no, this will not work. A ground provides a substantial electrical connection to *the ground* one way or another. In the U.S, to provide a ground for a radio or T.V. antenna, a long copper-coated stake is driven into the ground, and the area around it is covered in salt to assist conductivity (water or rain dissolves the salt into the surrounding soil). A thick wire is then attached to the copper stake and then run to the antenna and mast. This may give you some ideas, but may not be fully effective for your needs. Maybe an electrician will answer. Good luck. Don't kill yourself.
You don't unless you have lots of $$$$$$ then you would be hiring someone to do it. Find a different route. The wire can be run along the edge or anyway. 12v for a strike isn't hazardous and the wires will be small. If you insist, you can get a good welder to weld a length of steel rod onto a masonry drill. I would do it for a beer, because it would take about five minutes, and is not an every day thing, but I wouldn't guarantee the job because No one knows how bad you will abuse the drill.
It depends on what the purpose of the ground wire, whether it is for earthing or equipment grounding, however a nail in a concrete wall will not be effective for either earthing or equipment grounding. A conductor of at least 20 feet in length, imbedded in a concrete footing, will generally provide a suitable earth ground. If you are trying to establish an equipment grounding path, you need to connect to a good conductor that bonds to the neutral at the electrical service entrance of the building. If there is no equipment grounding conductor in the electrical circuits in the building, then you might look for steel or copper water or heating pipes. With a multimeter, you can measure resistance between the circuit neutral and any point that you think might be a possible ground. To effectively bond equipment, a suitable equipment ground will have a fraction of an ohm of resistance to the neutral. The purpose of an equipment ground is to be able to generate a very high ground fault current to ensure that a breaker will trip or fuse will clear very rapidly in the envent of a ground fault. An earth ground, or grounding electrode, serves a different purpose. You provide an earth ground so that the neutral conductor and all of the metal equipment enclosures will be at the same voltage as the earth, so if you are standing on a concrete floor or on the ground, and touch an electrical equipment enclosure, you won't get an electrical shock. The earth ground should be connected to a circuit neutral at only one point which should be at the main electrical disconnect or electrical meter.
