Why is earthing essential?

Most of the readers have a common question in their mind: is earthing necessary? Can’t we just use the electrical equipment without earthing? Answering their queries, Yes earthing is necessary for the below reasons.

Earthing of electrical equipment is necessary for 3 main reasons -

• Human Safety

The earthing of electrical equipment is essential for human safety. Due to earthing of equipment, the flow of leakage electric current is diverted through a different channel. Which would lower the casualties of human life and accidents that would have happened through the electric shock.

• Safety of electrical equipment

Earthing helps in flowing over excessive current through a different channel. This helps in reducing the chances of the flow of excessive current through the equipment. The over-voltage might cause the device to combust due to problems like overheating, etc. So, earthing also helps in fire prevention

• Protection of building from lightning

Earthing is not limited to electrical equipment, but also buildings like sky-scrappers are also earthed for protection from lightning. The earthing device is placed on the top of the building connecting to the ground via a plate or wire. In this case, the lightning is transferred down from the top of the building to the bottom (to the ground) with the wire or plate used. Which in turn prevents the building and its occupants from any damage or harm caused by lightning.

Types of Earthing Systems

There are varied ways of doing the earthing of electrical equipment in factories, industries, households, etc. The varied types of earthing systems include the following.

• Earthing plate

In this system, a copper or iron plate is used as an earthing plate.For a better electrical grounding system, one should maintain the earth’s moisture condition around the plate earthing system.

• Earthing pipe

When a galvanized steel pipe is placed vertically wet it is treated as an Earthing pipe. The pipe length is decided by the moisture of the soil on the surface of the earth.

• Earthing Rod

A copper Rod with galvanized steel pipe is placed upright in the ground physically or using a hammer. This system acts the same as that of earthing pipes.