Author: Rich
Date: 01-23-13 11:07
I have had a terrible time pulling out my ground rods, even if they are only 2 feet or so in the ground. I realize now that since I have moist soil most of the time I don't have to go very deep. However, I hit on a pretty good solution for when no amount of banging or wiggling will loosen the rod, and I don't want to dig a large hole in the pasture.
This could be done much more elegantly, and I will work on a better design for the coming season, but here is what I used all of last year. I used an 8 foot long 2x4 board and tightly wrapped around it a length of strong, stiff wire about 1/3 of the length from one end of the board, making sure I had about a foot or so of free wire hanging off. I wrapped this free end around the ground rod below the head. Then I placed the shorter end of the 2x4 (i.e. closer to the wire) on the ground and pushed the longer end up in the air. This creates a pretty powerful lever that pulls the ground rod nearly straight up out of the ground. I made sure to hold the 2x4 so that the narrower dimension is vertical, which is much stronger than holding it the other way.
Whenever I moved my fence, this went right into the cart along with my charger, fence and water tub.
As I said, the design could be improved, perhaps using a lightweight, but strong pipe instead of a 2x4 and maybe using strong cable with a noose end to go around the head of the rod.
Anyway, I hope this helps, or at least sets you and others on a path to invent your own solution. I love Premier, but I think they've overlooked this important part of the operation. Maybe they can come up with an inexpensive tool to help others out.
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