[Honduras Bob]

I know, in some areas, the ground and neutral, are joined at the breaker panel, is it better to have all grounds, incl the breaker enclosure, grounded to a separate, 8 or so ft groung rod, and not connected to the utility grnd.. I used to install many satellite system, years ago when the rcvr did many functions, and at times, the grounding was a problem for this complicated stuff.. just tying to RE learn some potential problems, and avoid them..

I recently installed, or had installed more correctly, in the City limits of Asheville Nc, a temp svc, and the reqirement there was, three, 8 ft rods, tied togather, and that was the authorized method.. so apparently, separate grounding from the utility grnd is very important, so why join them..?

[tkrussell]

What exactly is the question? Why the rods need to be tied together? So that all the ground rods are at the same potential.

[Honduras Bob]

Is it necessary to loop the Green house ground over to the white/neutral which then is tied to the service/utility co grnd grnd.. Would it not be as good or better to hook all the house green grounds to an 8 ft grnd rod, and not loop to theutility co ground,neutral..? Thereby having a totally independent ground..?

[tkrussell]

No, all grounded and grounding conductors need to connect at one location, the line side of the main. Having independent grounds is how trouble get caused, such as ground loops.

The purpose of the ground rod is to ground the neutral. The purpose of the green grounding wires in the branch circuits is to supply a low impedance path for fault currents, to allow fault current to rise high very quickly and to operate a fuse or breaker quickly.

The reason there were problems with grounding the dishes with separate ground rods was it created a ground loop because the grounding were at different potentials. Any and all ground rods need to be connected together.