purplekeenah
greensburg, pa
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For everyone that uses a portable generator, do you put a grounding rod in the ground and wire it to your generator grounding lug everytime you use your generator? I have a contractor generator rated at 5250 that I wanted to use in case of power outages at home, when reading the operating instructions it mentioned the grounding rod.
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old guy
Oregon (pronounced Or e gun)
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to do it properly drive the rod into the ground 4 to 6 ft and drill a hole in the rod and place the wire into the hole and put a screw in, then hook it into you ground screw on the gen set.
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Art D
Louisiana
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If you are connecting to a load via a 3-wire plug/cord, and the load frame is already grounded, and the neutral and ground in your generaor is connected to the generator frame, don't use a ground rod.
If the above is not true, a ground rod may be a good idea, but of the thousands of generators used in south Louisiana after Katrina hit, I bet no one took the time to ground the generator frame, and it was not even discussed as an issue.
I'm going to check the NEC (NFPA 70) when I get a chance to see what it states.
Geaux LSU
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hwybnb
Southern California
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old guy wrote:to do it properly drive the rod into the ground 4 to 6 ft and drill a hole in the rod and place the wire into the hole and put a screw in, then hook it into you ground screw on the gen set. Close, but a code-compliant ground rod is copper and has to be sunk to a depth of 8 feet.
It does not matter because grounding of portable generators is not required per the National Electric Code.
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2oldman
Indio CA
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Grounding generators.. consensus
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Art D
Louisiana
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If grounding a generator is required, then why isn't it required to ground our motorhomes when using the genny? Kinda hard to do going down the road.
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Wayne Dohnal
Banks, OR.
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If the generator is properly hooked up to the home, it will be grounded via the building's ground system and should not have a second ground connected to it. The thing to check with a contractor generator in this situation is that it doesn't have a neutral-ground bond applied, which is also supplied by the building's electrical system. I'm assuming when the generator's instructions talk about the ground rod, it's not in the context of being connected to a building.
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larry cad
Whatever.....
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There is no NEC requirement for driving a ground rod when using a portable generator to power an RV. Nor is there an OSHA specification. OSHA specifically says you do not have to drive a ground rod. However, and what most RVers miss, is that it IS a requrement that the generator neutral and ground wire be BONDED together.
I have been writing a series of posts on the RV.net blog about this subject. If you are interested in reading more, here is the link to the first post:
Generator bonding and grounding
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tvman44
Southwest Louisiana
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Around here after every hurricane there are thousands of generators running and I bet not a single one has a ground rod.
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Chuck&Gail
In the Colorado Mountains
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Can't say what code is. When power goes out I fire up my Coleman and throw the transfer switch. 240 VAC Coleman has 3 wires, HOT, HOT, and COMMON. Worked fine so far, a few times on and off for 20 years or so.
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