How to ground a water heater in a private house yourself?

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The technical passport of each boiler contains a clause on the mandatory presence of grounding in an apartment or private house. What is it? And how to properly ground a water heater so that you don’t have to redo everything later - we’ll tell you in our article in just 3 minutes.

Grounding to a boiler in a private house - why do it?

Anyone can receive an electric shock; no one is exempt. However, you can reduce the chances that even a bare wire will lead to disastrous consequences. This information is especially for you.

Consider the situation: a person touched a bare wire! You don’t have to immediately say that: “Oh, this is deadly; how can that be?” And so on. Any specialist will tell you that if there is no current in the network, then you will not be hit. But this is different. In situations where there is grounding for the boiler at the dacha, a special circuit is created to absorb excess electric current deep underground.

That's the whole point: grounding completely reflects current discharges, for example, if you mixed up the wires when connecting or, God forbid, stepped on a bare wire. The earth not only feeds, but also protects.

Boiler grounding design - what it looks like

Grounding is a thick electrical wire of short length, to which an electronic circuit is connected at one end, and the rest of the base is buried underground.

Installing boiler grounding in an apartment prevents possible electric shock and reduces the load on all household appliances. There is also another term among specialists - ground loop. It is needed for metal electronic structures:

1. Washing machine.
2. Electric stoves.
3. Boiler.

The excess of the device connected to the electrical circuit should be absorbed by the ground. But for this it is necessary to create a chain that will direct the flow of energy deeper.

Thus, high-quality grounding of a water heater in an apartment will protect a person 100%. Of course, the electric shock will not be mitigated completely - part of the charge will still pass through your body. But this will be such a small fraction that you may not even feel the impact.

How to ground a water heater in your own home - the preparatory part

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In order to make the best grounding possible for the water heater, in particular, it is necessary to create a circuit and connect it to the system. To do this, prepare several consumables and tools in advance:

• Square metal tube (angle, profile), at least 50 mm wide. For our work we need about 20 meters of such pipe.
• We will conduct grounding to the shield using a wire 3 mm wide.
• A welding machine that will be used to weld pipes for the circuit.
• Grinder or hacksaw for metal.
• Impact drill or hammer drill - to drill a hole in the wall and make a contour.
• Use a sledgehammer or large hammer to drive pipes into the ground.
• Cable with 3 cores for connecting a socket.
• Euro socket with space for grounding.
• Automatic machine with the necessary parameters for a water heater.
• Screwdriver, indicator, knife.

To begin with, we select a site for the future frame. The location range is no more than 5 meters from the switchboard. The most important thing is that people or animals do not move around that place, since in the event of a breakdown in the network, all the current will go there. We strongly recommend choosing the right place! – otherwise someone passing by may be electrocuted. To fence off an area, place stones, a fence, or plant a tree.

How to make grounding at the dacha for a water heater - assembling the circuit

We divide specially prepared corners into 6 strips of 3 meters each. We cut half of them with a grinder at an angle so that they can be conveniently driven into the ground.

We dig a small ditch in the shape of a triangle (length - at least 3 meters, depth - up to half a meter). We install pipes at the corners of the triangle and hammer them in, leaving 10 centimeters sticking out.

We weld the corners together with the remaining three parts that we did not saw through. The circuit is completed. It should be shaped like a three-legged chair, but without a seat.

How to ground a water heater in a country house - connect the system to the panel board

Let's move directly to the connection part of the system. To do this, we make a small groove to the ground from the corner of the triangle closest to the shield. You need to lay such a ditch from the electrical panel to the corner.

We drill a through hole in the wall of the house with a hammer drill or impact drill. We weld one corner of the cable onto the triangle and lead it along the hole into the house.This scheme will not work with ordinary wires, since it will simply rot in the ground in 3-5 years.

We weld a self-tapping screw with the head down to the end of the cable that we brought into the house. Now we bury the entire circuit located in the groove. It’s good if you have soft soil at your dacha or with a high clay content - current flows through such material many times faster due to the high concentration of salts. If there is a lot of sand in the ground, additionally prepare a solution of salt and water and water the wiring area generously.

How to connect grounding to a water heater - let’s look at the diagram

We take a screw connected to the wire by welding and wind a three-core cable around it. It is already being output to the electrical panel. A separate circuit breaker is installed inside the system and connected to the switchboard via a three-wire cable. Which machine to choose and the wire cross-section - all according to the individual parameters of each water heater. For a device with a power of up to 3.5 kW, a 10 Ampere machine and a 2 mm wire are enough, for a system up to 4.5 kW - 16 amperes in the equipment and 2.5 mm wires; if you take even more - 25 Amps and 3 mm of wire will be enough.

It is worth understanding the wires and connecting everything correctly: zero, phase and ground. The latter is attached to a yellow, green or yellow-green cable. Zero is the blue cable, and phase is the remaining one. If you haven’t figured out the diagram, then under the phase there are white, brown or black colors (they won’t appear at the same time, so you won’t get lost).

It is also important to first purchase an outlet with a place for grounding wiring. After the result, we run the three-wire system along the box, through the groove in the wall and to the future outlet. The system should be no more than 50 cm from the device and about 80 cm from the ground.Important: Do not install wires above the bathtub or shower!

How to ground a boiler - tips for perfect connection

And in the end, some tips on how to properly ground a boiler:

• It is important to plug in all electronics while the power is off throughout the house.
• Before touching the wire, we check it for the possibility of current with an indicator (probe).
• Do not connect the ground to any metal pipe.

If you have not yet installed such a system at home, then there are several dangers of using a boiler: first, all the current will go to the water; secondly, stray charges will gradually destroy the water heating elements. As a result, you will be left without a heater and with health problems. Just in case, if you are not sure of the clarity of your independent actions, consult a specialist or call a professional team. In any case - good luck!