New building, balanced power, grounding question...

[cajonezzz]

Hi all, we've started the build out of our new facility. It's an old wharehouse that has gone through numerous tenants , the most recent being an upholstery shop.
We've planned on putting Equitech balanced power in both the control A and edit room to power all audioas well as the power to various stuff that will be plugged in the main room.

Question is the integrity of the ground to the building itself. I haven't been able to track down the existing ground (probably a water main but I haven't found it yet)
How would one go about determining if the building has a good ground? Is there an easy method to check this out or should we just go ahead and sink a new ground for good measure. This is new to me, thanks for the help.

oh, and pictures of the building in progress to follow if anyone is interested.

[Tubelover]

Nothing beats having your electrician put a 6' copper rod into terra ferma. Talk to the guys who'll be doing the rewiring, they'll know the amount of potential each rod can displace, you'll need several.

[subspace]

If you're doing any exterior landscaping, flowerbeds make great places for a row of ground spikes. Daily watering can really enhance the ground potential.

[atticus]

I had a chance to spend a day visiting Sear sound and Walter showed me that he has several turns of #2 welding cable encircling the studio and control room with all of the equipment grounds being tied into that. Sear sound is on the sixth floor of a building in Manhattan so I can se why he'd like to "self-ground" rather then using Con-Ed's.

[Tubelover]

...with all of the equipment grounds being tied into that.

And then to what ?

It's not a ground if it doesn't find the real ground, as in the earth. I'm sure the guy knows what he's doing, but there must be more to it.

[atticus]

Got me, man! He quickly went on to showing me his collection of the coolest mics in the world and his Fairchilds as well as his Neve and Avalon consoles and I don't remember thing one about the rest of the ground path. Sorry

[sonic dogg]

Is this a building that has now or has had multiple tenants? There will be a room dedicated to the Main Service of the building...out of which could be any number of Feeders supplying panels of different sizes and possibly different voltages/phases etc....in this dedicated room will be the Service Grounding conductor....and a clue as to what type of ground they have available in the building....there will be a water ground of some sort though if the interior water pipe system is in pvc then the ground will only be to ground any metal parts at the drinking fountains...mop sinks ect...there will likely be suplemental grounds...ie. building steel,ground ring,ground rod(which should be a minimum of 10'..per code)something of this ilk....whoever your electrician is doing your install, its good in your situation, to have someone familiar with sound circuitry and isolation...your basic housewireman may not have enough experience with this to get it all quiet and safe too..........peace

[Steve Smith]

ditto to all the above, drive a new rod(s).. and congrats on the Equitech, works great.. mine is my most favorite piece of gear!