A ufer ground system is often misunderstood. A typical grounding system for a home’s electrical system is to connect a grounding wire to either the home’s metal plumbing system or a grounding rod embedded in the soil. Or both.
During World War II, the US Army discovered that grounding rods in sandy soil were not effective in properly grounding a building. This was due to the low water content of sand made sandy soil a bad conductor. Herbert G. Ufer invented a method of embedding a grounding rod in the concrete of a building’s foundation. This was quickly recognized as an effective method to ground a building built on sandy soil. In 1978, the National Electric Code allowed Ufer’s method to be a primary grounding method.
What Does A Ufer Look Like?
Because most Ufer systems are installed behind walls, you rarely see a Ufer in person. But every once in a great while, we find a home where the Ufer is not covered up. You can see, that it looks just like a grounding rod, only it is embedded in the foundation wall of the home. Nearly every Ufer we come across is in the garage area of a home.
Is Your House Built After 1980?
In the Los Angeles area, most homes built after 1980 have a Ufer Grounding System. In part because some parts of Southern California have sandy soil. But mainly because a Ufer system can be tucked away in a wall, as opposed to a grounding rod which can be a trip hazard. Worse, if a person were to trip and fall ONTO a grounding rod, there is a high chance of injury. While a typical Ufer grounding system has no such problems.
Where Is My Ufer?
On a typical home built after 1980 in the Los Angeles area, the electrical panel is on the outside wall of a garage. In the panel, you may notice a ground wire exiting the bottom of the panel.
So if you look on the other side of the panel, in the garage about about 12-16 inches off the ground, you usually will see an non-descrpit square plastic cover. The ufer is in the wall, behind the cover.
Occasionally it labled, though not often.
A Quick Checklist to determine of a house has a Ufer
Is the home built after 1980? The likely yes. If it was built before 1978, then no.
Is the electrical panel on the outside of a garage wall? This is a hint leading to yes.
If there a rather nondescript square box cover roughly 12-16″ off the ground along the garage wall? Then yes.
Of course, if the garage is full of stuff, you may not be able to see the box cover.
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