Wierd electrical question...

[Steve_Miller]

I'll babble here for a few minutes. I had an electrician friend who did a lot of farm work at one time. He had a farmer call him and tell him that his cows would not go near the barn. He took the neutral off the panel and measured between the incoming neutral and the panel grounding rod and measured over 900 volts. He called the power company and they actually found the broken ground at the base of the pole the transformer was on. Come to find out the ground was a plate poured into the concrete pad in the barn thus the transformer on the pole was getting it's ground through the farmer's panel ground and over that distance (something over a thousand feet, the resistance of the wire is high enough to allow a voltage drop) is not a good enough ground for the transformer. The cows obviously knew there was a problem as they are very sensitive to electricity. If the same scenario is happening at your place, I would definitely have the power company investigate as this is a serious shock hazard, not only to you but also to anyone who comes in contact with the grounding of anything in your house, especially if you are standing in the basement in a damp area or outside standing on the ground and touching some object that is grounded to your panel. It may be that your ground rod or plate (as someone mentioned above is not sufficient) is not getting a really good bonding to dissipate the potential on the ground line. I hope this may help, at least let us know if the problem is resolved.

Steve

 

[Richard]

I've not heard anything back so today, I called my father in law & asked if someone had looked into this yet.

Answer was yes. I asked what the deal was...

(remember, he's mid 80's so he was not terribly clear to me and I myself do not understand all this electrical stuff so the bottom line is, I'm 99% sure that what ever "reality" is and what I'm going to say, are probably not totally accurate)

He said the power company came out, verified his 'shocking situation'. As it turned out, they had a problem at one of their poles. He told me their problem was with their neutral wire that it either broke from it's grounding point on the ground or was very loose giving a poor connection.

What ever the exact problem there was, they fixed it the day they came out and measured again.

This is the part that still confuses me...

Seems "they still couldn't get it to read zero, it still had an amp or so when they checked the system"

That is a paraphrase of what he told me.

My brain says if there is a gnats farts worth of any signal showing when the breaker is turned OFF that some kind of issue exists somewhere. Maybe I'm dumber than the chair I'm sitting in but that's my logic.

I certainly am in no position to second guess the power company though. I would like to think safety would be their first concern and if he still had an issue they would have looked further into it.

Regardless... the story seems to be over and it seems it was their neutral line somewhere outside.

 

[SPIKER]

still have a small voltage on the Neutral line is not un-common in rural areas, the main reason is distance from the power companies last ground rod to your ground rod. voltage can be INDUCED very easily into the Neutral line from the power running through the other lines that run with it. the voltage will share the two paths to ground, one path being your house neutral Ground rod & well if they are attached, and the other two being the next closest pole ground rods. They all share the common path to different locations, the current/voltage takes the least path of resistance. with a single volt I would not worry much, if you want to you can add an additional ground rod and or make sure you have a good bond to the well head, this will dissipate the power you see at the water heater. Not sure if there has been a lot of failures of the heating elements on that water heaters as it sounds like it is grounded well electrically and the heater is becoming the ground point back to the waterlines & well head. it may also lead to premature lining failure of the water heater as that small current flows through the heater into the waterlines/well. It maybe that you have somewhat high dissolved minerals in the water there to help make the ground back to the lines more efficient that the ground rod at the meter/panel board. one thing you can also check is to make sure your house ground rod has a good clean connection and then take 5 gallon bucket of water & pour down around the rod. then take a meter reading an hr or so later to see if the voltage has diminished. it probably will not go to "0 volts" but will tell you if the ground rod dirt has lost some of it its conducting properties.

mark

 

[Steve_Miller]

Thanks for the follow-up Richard.

Steve