My house in the Philippines is wired 220 volts without a ground or neutral. For safety reasons I want to add a ground. I will replace the existing fuse box with an up to date breaker box from the U.S. My question is how do I add a ground. Can I just drive a copper rod into the earth and connect to that? And is it really necessary? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

What you described is about right. At my house, we have a nearly two meter copper plated rod driven into the ground and a copper wire run to the breaker box -this was done by a licensed electrician. If the wire connects to the rod underground, it is important that the ground rod, the clamp, and the wire all be copper or copper plated so they suffer corrosion from electrolysis.

If the quality of your wiring will support it, in other words if it is well insulated and you don't have too much ground leakage current, changing the main circuit breaker to an "Earth Leakage Breaker" is also a good idea from a personal safety point of view.

 

What you described is about right. At my house, we have a nearly two meter copper plated rod driven into the ground and a copper wire run to the breaker box -this was done by a licensed electrician. If the wire connects to the rod underground, it is important that the ground rod, the clamp, and the wire all be copper or copper plated so they suffer corrosion from electrolysis.

If the quality of your wiring will support it, in other words if it is well insulated and you don't have too much ground leakage current, changing the main circuit breaker to an "Earth Leakage Breaker" is also a good idea from a personal safety point of view.

Currently there is no breaker box . Just a small small old time small 2 screw in fuses. This is handling 5 window air cons and all the rest of the stuff on 12 gage wire. Just to scared to me.
Thanks for the info.

 

Many fond memories of the Philippines. Power was 220 Volts 60 Hz. The power should come in with a Hot and Neutral. Then fused on the Hot side. Here in the US depending the ground the grounding rod is an 8 foot steel or aluminum rod which is copper clad for residential service. All home improvement stores sell them, not sure where to find one in the Philippines. The absolute minimum wire gauge is AWG 8 and they like to see AWG 6. The thing with grounding is the soil conductivity varies from area to area. How moist is the soil or how dry is the soil? What is the PH of the soil (alkaline content), you get the idea but an 8 foot aluminum or steel rod 1" in diameter that is copper clad is driven into the ground. Using a US residential breaker panel I would bridge the two Hot terminals and tie my Neutral and Ground to the respective bus inside the box.

Ron

 

If the soil is particularly dry is also customary to drive two rods around 6ft apart, min.
Max.

 

Thanks guys. That's what I thought but I just wanted to be sure.