Hi everyone, Half built in South Wales

[Freddie]

16 hours ago, Onoff said:

More reading:

 

https://professional-electrician.com/technical/selecting-and-installing-earth-electrodes/

thank you for more reading. starting to get to grips with this now. Thinking of boggy soil - what if I place a dpc membrane at the base of the flower bed and turn up say 150mm on all sides to catch water and stop it draining thus creating a pool . Backfill with soil , add copper tape along length at overflow height 150 mm. , backfill more soil   600 - 700 mm . so the tape is that depth below ground level and then connect tape to earth rod. It should create a wetter area . what do you think? Cheers

[Freddie]

15 hours ago, TonyT said:

If you have trenches rather than rods use copper tape,

 

bare copper 25mm wide by 3mm thick in the trench and terminate it into an earth rod chamber, there join it to a 16mm earth conductor. This allows the joint to be inspected.

After all the excellent links and reading from  @Onoff . I am thinking along those lines. However I think I need  to get the soil wetter as well. So thinking of dpc membrane turned up 150 mm at base of trench to catch water like a pool. Backfill with soil to overflow , lay copper tape and backfill soil 600mm depth. Hopefully to keep wet and boggy conditions for soil especially during summer dry spells.

[Freddie]

15 hours ago, TonyT said:

With rods you have to watch the zones of influence so if you hit a rod 1.2 metres into the ground the next rod if you decide to add another needs to be 2.4metres away

 

So sometimes it’s worth just throwing the tape into a trench , backfilling with bentonite if necessary and away you go.

 

 

Great. Thanks for help and advice