How to select best Earthing Electrode ?

No, but you might tag the topic with "grounding electrode" for those of us in the US. Might get more answers that way.

The answer I would give is "Use your electrical knowledge and experience to select the most appropriate electrode for the job. If you do not have such knowledge, ask a qualified professional. Since most countries require safety-related work to be done by such professionals, do this in any case."

Some idiot voted me down; if that was the OP, I sure don't want to touch any exposed metalwork in the building you are wiring!

Idiot still around. The best earthing (or 'grounding') electrode type and number needed for a particular installation depend on a number of things: soil type and moisture level will determine whether you use copper, stainless steel, zinc-coated steel or copper-clad steel, to name some common types. According to typical code (US 1999 NEC) once a single rod is installed buried at least 8 feet), a resistance measurement to a remote ground should read 25 ohms or less. If not then the code requires the installation of one additional ground rod to be located at least 6 ft away from the first. Also the rod(s) must be a minimum O.D. of ¾ in. if made of galvanized pipe, a minimum of 5/8 in. O.D. if solid iron or steel, and a minimum of ½ in. if made of nonferrous material such as copper or stainless steel. Aluminum ground rods are forbidden.

You see, to make the correct selection, you need to know all these things. Correct grounding is important for safety of building users, nearby users and power company equipment. I am not shitting you, so why the downvotes?

I have an idea about that.

This kind of question arise all the time.

The one time poster gets here and asks his question, to never return.

The answers he gets rises the number of hits on Google for the product he is trying to promote.

Then, unwillingly, you helped him to get free publicity.

Long time posters know that and vote your post down.

It's not about you personally, it's about the process..

Yes, I had thought of that, but there is no link or mention of any product by name. It could simply be simply an incompetent spammer who forgot to name the product, I suppose.

Someone has voted down all the posts I have made over the last 2 days. I suspect a troll.

Tes thank you for that fine summary An excess of "voted down" is misleading as many of us click the thumbs down not because we don't like the posting but simply to remove it from the list

Once installed, I wonder whether, to what extent, and and how one might also dampen the soil

It doesn't matter, the product is implied in the question (and the answers).

With Google adds, the link is automatically established.

I'd bet the poster is Indian.

With a poor soil type, e.g. sandy or rocky, or volcanic ash, you would use multiple stakes driven well into the subsoil and also if needed you can add substances to the soil to help it retain moisture. Copper or magnesium sulfate, but these may be forbidden in some areas and anyhow will wash away and need replacing. So will coke powder. A fairly recent product is conductive cement which absorbs moisture from surrounding soil and hardens, retaining moisture within its structure.

You can also use buried mats made of copper mesh.

our agricultural ground posts are multi clad with a copper coating and Ni /Zn undercooat with a SS core .ALL are about 8 ft long 8gage, and we usually drill a 4 ft hole and then drive the ground cable almost all the way in (leaving about 6" "proud" on which we clamp the ground cables). The post hole is filled with the Ca Cl2 concrete mix (as Tes says-DRY) as this is a mix that sucks water nd hardens). Let that set for a few days and then hook the ground cable from the electric fence.
You cant drive these babies too deep and if you gave amultitester on your line, you can see whether only one ground post is enough. We have two fences that are slightly less than 2 miles in length and the good ground assures you of a hot fence.

Man, thanks for that. Just out of curiosity, say you had planted two of 'em. Before connecting however, what sort of max resistance reading would you tolerate before deciding a third is necessary

Some people just have too much time on their hands. Mostly, I leave them where I found them so we can all see what jerks some people can be. Let me know if you want them thumbed back up.

If you hook up a small metal rod about 2 ft into the ground and about 3 ft separation from the groundpost, a voltmeter should read less than, say 500 kv.
then you need an additional ground post. Usually we dont have that but we do put ground posts every 1500 feet in the fence (remember, for a cattle fence, the animals foot is a conductor s is the part that touches the electric fence.

Sheep are expecially tough to control because theyre so wooly before theyre shorn, cattle and horses are easy.

Man don't you mean mv?

I'd suppose also a resistance of more than a few ohms


Edited to note that the "500 kv" ref suggests you're thinking about an electric fence, another subject entirely. I'd suppose it wouldn't require near the grounding capability of a building or a lightning rod

never knew the exact resistance, the fencing people always gave their reccommendations in volts or Kv, so using Ohms law you could calculate the R (id assume that the amperes were really low cause an electric fence couldn't really electrocute the stock)

Yes, the R reading would be of little use in the case of the electric fence, the Kv to which you refer obviously being a measurement of static charge at a distance

...which would give you the effective resistance of the air at that distance, an interesting thought but one of little significance to you and me or the farmer

Really low and probably impossible to measure except using special equipment not available to such as we

Typical cattle fences use a solid-state "fence charger" powered often by a lead acid battery. They energize the wire with pulses. Typical values: 1 pulse per second, voltage around 5,000 to 10,000 V, pulse duration 10 microseconds, peak current 50 to 100 mA. The current and duration mean the animal gets a jolt which is definitely not lethal or even unhealthy to the animal. Farmers and fence installers can check if the fence is putting out the right energy using portable testers costing $50 upwards.