Helms Electrical Contractor & Services

Helms isn’t our typical electrician (geez — must be getting old when I can say that we have an electrician) — but sometimes the normal guy isn’t available, and so we called on them to fix a problem with a ground rod.
The ground rod is the monstrous steel pipe that goes into the ground to dissipate electricity when it needs to go somewhere. So it’s pretty important. By all appearances, ours was installed with the house — which was about forty years ago.
Back then, it was a hollow pipe. Now it’s solid. It’s something like the difference between a hollow chocolate bunny and a solid one. Over the last forty years, ours had completely corroded. The only thing keeping it together was the wire that attached the rod to the house. Which means we had no ground rod.
So we called Helms to come out, and this guy gets up on the ladder with what looks like a mini jack-​hammer and proceeds to pound the rod into the ground. It was actually pretty funny to watch. He was a nice guy, but it didn’t really appear safe. Had we not been in somewhat dire straits, I probably would have gone back to our normal guy.
After it was all over, we seem to be set again, and it all works — but I’m not sure that they are the most «by the book» types.