I was working for an electrical supplier when the ground fault devices for residential use first became a common item on the market. This was around the same time CB radio took off and GFI devices were tripping every time someone with a strong transmitter keyed the microphone. It took a while for manufacturers to figure out and fix that one. I'm now wondering if you may have something arcing in your electrical system or something with a switching power supply somewhere that could be putting spikes on your electrical system that could be affecting the GFI breakers? O_o
I don't know why they make things better. One day at the hospital, the power went off. I now forget the scenario. They did manage to get something back on line. The switches went down in the power switchover room, or were tripped. Manufacturer recommended no radios to be operated in area. So they labeled one hallway, no cell phones, radio transmitters. I don't think it ever happened again that I know of.
If outlets are subject to high humidity, the circuit may fault. Try obtaining a ground fault receptacle and put at the first outlet as feed thru. If it trips, move to next outlet and on until problem location is identified. I have found Leviton to be fairly reliable.
Code here sez ground rods must be driven, not buried; but can be driven at = up to a 45-degree angle to avoid bedrock when needed.
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No mention of watering the ground, but if it erodes earth away from the rod= it's probably increasing your ground resistance.=20
But ground *plates* can be buried. I hadn't heard of such a thing until las= t summer when I decided I wanted a ground outside the house for a new TV an= tenna mast (rather than running the ground wire directly into the house to = get to the ground lug on the water pipe). Cheap, and the kids briefly found= that watching Dad dig a hole in the yard was a viable alternative to YouTu= be, though they seemed to expect me to whack myself with the shovel.
Like others, I doubt that lack of a proper ground is behind your GFI proble= m. My guess is that you've got a partial short on the circuit that first ca= used the breaker to trip, maybe from a nail in the wall or maybe from a fla= ky connection; and repeated tripping weakened that breaker. Try putting a n= ew known-good GFI breaker on that second circuit. If it works properly for = a while, move it to the circuit that first caused the tripping. If it star= ts to trip, you've got a real problem on that circuit. If it works ok on th= at circuit, you've got no problem at all, just had a couple of bad breakers= .
A neutral-to-ground short, even one with some resistance, will trip a GFI s= ince the return current will split itself partly to the ground wire, and th= e GFI will see it missing from the neutral. Maybe somewhere on that circuit= an outlet or switch has shifted to the point where the neutral screw is to= uching the grounded box. Of course, if there is truly zero load on that cir= cuit, that wouldn't explain it. If there is really no load at all then the = fault must involve the hot leg, and that's something you really should trac= k down.
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