“Earthing” for your home?
bill328
| Posted in General Questions on
Have had my eye on the Earthing movement for a while and I am sold. I am doing a new build in the next two months and I am wondering if anyone has any knowledge or resources on grounding your home so that you can practice Earthing within the structure.
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Replies
I had to look up what this is. Looks like complete nonsense. Claims based on intuition, backed by zero evidence or even a logical means of effect.
Your home should already be grounded per code. This will be accomplished through one or more of the following: connection to a metal municipal water supply piping system, connection to a metallic water well casing, one or more 8 foot ground rods, a ground ring, a Ufer ground, etc.
The purpose of grounding is to establish a common reference potential FOR SAFETY, NOT FOR HEALTH. The "safety" part is to make sure that you won't touch something that is at a different electrical potential than you are, so that no current will flow THROUGH your body. That is the important thing. Grounding on cables entering the home also serve to provide some measure of protection against lightening.
I read a few things about "earthing" online, since I was thinking you had something else in mind other than the "grounding" that I would think of as an electrical engineer. Much of the information I found was wrong, and some was dangerous. Note that it is the FLOW of electrons that does things, not anything that sits at one state. If there is no movement of charge, there is no energy flow, so nothing happens. It's like lifting a weight off the floor and placing it on your desk. Nothing happens unless you knock the weight off the desk.
I also saw some sites talking about connecting yourself with a wire to an electrical outlet ground. In certain situations, this can kill you. The standard in the industry is to use a one megohm (one million ohms) resistor in any connection like that to limit the current that can flow through your body if you happen to come in contact with anything energized. Any decent antistatic wrist strap will have that resistor built in.
If you really want to cut down on static electric charge within your home, there are products for this purpose -- except they're made for commercial uses. Such products are known as "ESD Safe" for ElectroStatic Discharge safe. They are all slightly conductive to help bleed off static electric charges before they can build to levels that can damage semiconductor devices. You can get ESD safe floor tiles, ESD safe chairs, ESD safe shoes and shoe covers, just about anything. Most products will be a light blue color to identify them as ESD safe. All of this stuff is fairly expensive. Some of this stuff can be found at suppliers to the electronics industry such as Techni-Tool.
Personally I wouldn't worry about it. There is a LOT of pseudo science out there, and this "Earthing" -- at least for "health" -- is that. The "earth your car" thing has been around for decades in the car audio world, and it is useless there too.
Bill
Whether or not to take this concept seriously is one question, but not what you asked. As far as how to do it effectively, safely, and economically, I agree that looking for ESD safe stuff is a good approach.
A popular green flooring material is Marmoleum brand lineoleum (true linoleum, not PVC called linoleum). They make a conductive ESD safe version:
https://www.forbo.com/flooring/en-gl/products/linoleum/conductive-linoleum/marmoleum-ohmex/bqno6o#73055
You can't separate the "taking it seriously" from answering the question. Case in point, your suggestion does not fulfill the intent of "earthing", which has nothing to do with static discharge or anything real, and everything to do with "connecting to the Earth’s natural energy". It's quite literal nonsense on par with auras and psychic healing.