Finding The Source of Stray Current on Grounding System
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- Опубликовано: 18 май 2024
- Tracking down stray voltage in an electrical system can be a challenge!
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Here we go through the process of trying to find a faulty device, circuit, or appliance that may be malfunctioning and causing a partial fault or leak to the earth grounding system. I demonstrate the usage of a clamp style ammeter and by using the process of elimination we are able to find the source of the stray voltage and or current that was leaking into the grounding electrode system.
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Ben
0:00 - Situation Intro
0:49 - Suggested Solutions
3:47 - Ammeter Mode
4:32 - Finding The Circuit?
8:14 - Surge Breaker?
9:40 - Main Breaker Shut Off
11:17 - Yard Panel Breaker?
13:38 - How The Wires Run
14:08 - Yard Panel Measurements
16:01 - SPOILER ALERT!
19:53 - The Good News...
21:00 - SUBSCRIBE!!!
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It electric magnetic field from transformer which energized your grounded conductor before termination on first mean of disconnect.
So you getting voltage on your grounded conductor/ I=E/R. Your E from magnetic field and your R is R of wire and connection etc.
That is why your have a current. Check your voltage between grounded conductor and earth.
As Joe (below) points out, there is always some ground current flowing and it is using your equipment ground system as a convenient short cut. The transmission line out at the road will have a common line accompanying it. Each transformer on a pole should have its common connected to it and a ground rod at the base of the pole (bare copper wire stapled on the side). Your remote transformer has its own ground rods locally doing the same job. There is always going to be a slight potential difference between all these grounding points. The Earth is not a perfect conductor.
@@ivglife9831 I just saw this. I am not an electrician so I am not fully fluent in electrical terms. If I understand this correctly I do not have voltage on the ground when separated from the neutral in the breaker box. The voltage is definitely coming from the transformer on the neutral leg, but only shocks us or shows any voltage in our shower, my next door neighbors shower and the master across the street, but I do not know if the one across from us is still having the issue as it has been empty for a while. Last night I chopped off a fingernail too short and cut myself. Today I got japped in the finger in the shower.
@@SteveP-vm1uc Somewhere you have a cold water pipe ground and likely you have plastic pipe between the tub or whatever and no metallic connection to the street side of the connection to cold water pipe ground. Also, you might have electric water heater shorting electrodes. Plus this can all be installed at the water heater.
Inductive current is why that gauge you love to use so much works!
I wish I had found this a year ago.
I am a retired telephone company "Transmission Technical Support Engineer" and part of my many hatted job was to prove to power companies that they could, would, and were contributing to noise on my telephone cables with neutral/ground problems. Without getting pedantic, I took a power company field engineer on a field trip when we had been arguing about stray currents using my telephone cable as a better ground than his neutral, and hooked up all of my meters and showed him. Despite the demonstration, he still acted as though I was using some sort of slight of hand, and that's when I realized that he did not really understand the nature of ground and differences in ground potential, so I hooked up my Ground Potential Rise test set improperly ( slight of hand after all) and hooked one electrode to an 8 inch screw driver stuck in the ground about 50 feet away and the other lead to the ground wire from the pole pig transformer that we were near, and showed ~30Vac and about .6A. I told him that his system (delta) was doing this, and then drove another screwdriver into the ground 50 off in a different direction and showed .1A and a varying voltage less than 5Vac.
Actually what we found, after much more wrangling, was that the rural road had had a recent "explosion" in population and businesses, including a machine shop with nice synchronous motors, and the power company, instead of re-engineering the power along the road and taken the cheap and easy way out. Starting from the three phase Wye fed distribution line, the local line was a couple of miles of single phase with a neutral. They converted the neutral to a phase wire and delta fed the road, just replacing the older transformers as needed. They also clean forgot to tell us that they were no longer a Multi-grounded neutral system out there any more so that we could correct our bonding and grounding. My telephone cable was providing a much better ground than the rocky soil up in the mountains and it was no wonder we were having noise.
So, I might be late in suggesting this, but pull those ground rod connections and prove whether the power company is "borrowing" some neutral from you.
I did telecom and datacom and had issues of ground screwing up network. I later went to electrical and after a bit I got why electricians always hated us telecom/datacom wire pullers LOL.
@@lespaul36 Yeah, we kept proving them wrong.
This is kind of confusing so is the cause of neutral to earth voltage due to a deteriorated neutral conduction making the voltage use the ground as a path back to source? Or is a neutral to earth voltage reading unavoidable because of the voltage drop difference when referenced to ground?
@@hippo-potamus The short answer would be yes. Current will always seek the path of least resistance to complete the circuit, if the power neutral is compromised and the telecomm or data comm ground is better, that's the way it will go, bringing all of the noise it picks up along the way with it. The goal is for power, telco, CATV, and any other "artificial ground" to be a better ground than earth, avoiding all of the noise and stray currents that exist in earth.
@@jimlongley9531 This topic of neutral to earth voltage is very interesting. Why does the leakage and dispersion through Ben's system not trip the gfci breakers? Is the amperage distributed such that its lower than the threshold? or is it perhaps due to the fact that its upstream from the breaker? Appreciate your knowledgeable input.
It could be the earth's magnetic field. Turn the house 90 degrees
I think you're my new favorite comedian now
Sure 😂🤣
😁Wow, it may just be the earths N & S poles switching.
What about turn the earth 90degrees 😐
That's it all fixed
Benjamin, From the video you have two very possible sources. One is much more likely than the other. I'll start with the likely first.
1 The utility has current into the ground due to the pad transformer is single phase. You can read the tag on the transformer. If the primary is 5,000 Volts, the transformer is receiving 1 hot leg of a 3 phase system, and a neutral. The Neutral is bonded to ground. The neutral has a long... Long wire, so considerable resistance. Not all current of the transformer is returning on the neutral. Some is taking a shortcut back to the substation through the ground, which you can measure on your ground rods. This is common in rural areas where the distribution goes past the point they pull 4 wire 3 phase power. Read the tag on the transformer. Almost will bet my lunch the primary is 5KV. Most non rural areas have two hots from 3 phase. When this is the case the primary is 7200 volts phase to phase.
2 You are between someplace with an open neutral and there is a voltage gradient in the ground. If this is the case the current in the ground is finding a lower resistance shortcut in it's path by going onto the ground wire between the two places.
How to test the difference yourself.
1 Monitor the current to your ground rods. Turn on the water heater after a shower, turn on the dryer, heat pump, and stove. This increases your power draw and the draw in the primary of the transformer. The higher HV draw will increase the current in the grounding system in the single phase application outlined above. A bi-phase 7200 volt primary with all return current on the other hot phase will not increase ground rod current with the increased load.
Let us know what you find. Betcha it is number 1 above with a 5KV single hot transformer. Primary return currents are fed into the ground.
This is close. Circulating current can be sourced from a neighbor. Call your utility. Start pulling meters from the neighbor. I have chased down shock calls and found circulating current from the neighbors barn. You won’t know until you pull the neighbors meter. I have bin there done that.
Hi there, your No 2 sollution would hold if current through the ground wire as measured in the two panels yould be almost the same. Since current of the outside panel ground wire is almost double, the No 1 answer seams all the more likely to be the one.
Could you disconnect one end of the ground line that has the current flowing in it, and measure the voltage across the gap? That voltage times the 0.3 or so Amp that you're reading is the maximum power that could be involved here. If it's 120 volts or less, maybe hook up an incandescent light bulb and see if you get a useful amount of power. My guess is that the source impedance is quite high, and the bulb will just short out the voltage. Issettech's theory of stray current from the utility is most likely correct.
-- J.S.
@Trev Broudy Dis similar metals will erode while forming a battery with the ground as electrolyte. The source can by found by systematic disconnection of bond and ground wires. A common source is metal conduit which is zinc coated for corrosion and copper ground rods. The Zinc becomes a sacrificial anode and is eaten away by the current while preserving the copper ground rod. On boats, this sacrificial anodes is part of the design to preserve metal parts such as engine shafts and propellers from corrosion.
To find this, the direction of the current and identification of all connections to ground must be identified. With the AC mains disconnected, and thus isolated, you can temporally disconnect the grounding rods at your service while monitoring current. Chances are, in an older installation, the conduit for underground service is galvanized iron.
For research, study the purpose of the zinc anode in water heater tanks, zinc anodes for outboard motors and sacrificial zinc anodes for boats with inboard motors. With systematic following of the current, you should be able to identify the various metals in contact with the ground. If you have a pool, the bonding electrode system may contribute to this mix.
As John Sprung observed, in my mind, I'm wondering what the source of the voltage is that is driving the currents. We need someone to draw out the circuit like Mike Holt does, and put the current and voltage measurements on it to truly understand what is going on.
I like the way you answered the question. Power is attempting to return back to its source through the lease resistant point. I do appreciate your videos keep up the great work.
Friend of mine had a similar problem. He was measuring 30 V from the ground in the basement panel to a bonding ground on his water line. Initially, the utility company blamed it on faulty wiring somewhere inside the house and told him to call an electrician, He did so and nothing was found. Eventually, after several emails back and forth to the utility company, they determined it was a problem at their distribution transformer where the neutral wasn't grounded correctly.
I stated on the last video that you have a ground rod by the main panel. You also have a ground point with your plumbing coupling/gas coupling/ground wire. You have .44 amps at the neutral and you will see .22 amps on each parallel leg of the grounding. If you added a third ground point, you would see .15 amps on each leg. These are two parallel paths to ground from the transformer.
Did you ever find the cause??
Long, but interesting. I have a similar issue here in Holiday, Florida. Bought the house in 09'. Moved in after a major remodel. Within the first few showers in out new to us master bathroom, my wife was complaining for feeling like she was being electrocuted in the shower. I had never felt it till I was in the shower adjusting the shower head with a cut on my finger. It was enough to wake me right the hell up!! Most outlets and switches had been changed in the house along with most appliances. My thought was, electric water tank. Oddly, I wasn't able to read any current draw anywhere and it was beginning to make me think it was something we did while remodeling. Now I have an automotive background with some home remodeling under my belt, but for sure, not an electrician. So while I was not getting any read with my digital meter, I DID with an old analog meter but only IN MY SHOWER!! Yes, I figured we had run a screw into the wiring. Since I was getting a read off the shower and frame of the shower door. So I pulled all the screws in the frame to wall, (the entire time saying, NO WAY I DID THAT!!) Well, screws out and still .45 volts. Checking other plumbing in the house shows zero. So I do what everyone else would do and shut off the main. Go back to the shower and .45 amps. Now I call the power company. Guy shows up and asks what is going on. I tell him and he looks at my like I am purple.. I tell him to grab his meter and follow me. Of course he grabs his digital meter and shows me there is nothing on the line.. I grab my old analog meter and show him and now it is 5.1 amps. I then ask him if we pull the can, will it break the neutral? He says he doesn't know.. I ask: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN DOING THIS??? 12 years, he replies.. lol.. So while he is telling me it is in my house, I am telling him I have tried everything in the house and it is NOT. After he confirmed everything, he finally pulled the can. Now I can see that the neutral is ALWAYS hooked up all the way back to the transformer. Now I want him to check the transformer and her starts in on it being my neighbors house. Side note: After he left, my neighbor asked what was going on. I told her we were getting shocked in our shower. She says: ARE YOU KIDDING??? Turns out they had remodeled their bathroom a few years before we bought next door. After their expensive remodel, she was getting shocked!! Thinking it was something their remodeler had done, they ripped the shower walls back out digging for the issue. Never found it, but their new shower control handles were PLASTIC, so she never got zapped again!! So while the Power guy was here, I got him to go into the transformer and tighten up our wire clamps. He argued doing so, but I again proved to him it would make a difference. Sure enough, the voltage went UP!! Went from 5.1 to 5.9 and considering I didn't have a straight line of sight and yelled out the window exactly when he tightened up the clamp, he finally started to believe I knew what I was talking about. Then he said he had no idea and the engineers would have to look into it. A week later another truck pulls up out front. 2 guys this time. I answer the door and tell the first guy the story. He yells out to the other guy, WE HAVE ANOTHER POWERED GROUND ISSUE LIKE THE BEER PLANT!! Well, as the crow flier, the beer plant is about 1600 feet away. Turns out, after more than a year of investigating, it was a bad transformer on site and owned by the beer company. It literally would raise the hair on your arms if you walked too close to a steel building on their property. So now these two make some checks and tell me I will be hearing from Florida Power. Another few days go by and I get a call. 2 engineers come to the house and I tell them the entire story. Top guy wants to see my meter and where exactly the master bath is. I tell them I have seen as much as 9.6 volts. After months of more digging they found nothing. Still, we are getting blasted in the shower. It's worse on the wife than me, but she is still showering every day in that shower. She just sets the temp before getting in and gets out and stands on the bath rug to shut it off. So we've owned the house about 2 years at this next point when the neighbor across the street asks me if I would come over and shut off her shower.. WHAT!!!!!! I get over there and she tells me her ELECTRICIAN hubby is out of town working and she cannot leave the water running any longer.. Sure as the SUN, I shut off the water and come back with my meter. BANG!! She has 6.6 volts in her master shower. I checked other plumbing there just as I did here and next door and in all three homes it is only in the master showers. I call back the engineers and tell them this new discovery. He says: I will be there within the hour and I am pretty sure I know what is wrong! GREAT!!! He shows up and says: We had linesmen run tests in this area in every possible place and what we know today is that someone LIED!!! Turns out, from him knowing the neighbor across the street, (Different transformer), had the same issue that it had to be a capacitor bank about 1 mile away that was leaking into the neutral at our power transmission dump. Sure enough, he had it tested again and it failed. After being rewired correctly, I no longer had voltage in my shower... But over time, guess what came back!!!!!! Hope this helps..
That is incredible. But why only in the master shower at each residence? Why not the kitchen sink, etc.? And even worse, why not an outdoor spigot? Seems like if barefoot, that could be really bad. If the ground was dry, maybe bad, but maybe if the ground was saturated, hopefully the current would just go through you to the earth ground, and hopefully not cook you too much? Or ami missing something?
WOW i read it all
I would never normally read a comment half that long, glad I did thou. Very interesting and also a scary ordeal. Thanks for sharing that👍. Ive been watching vids and doing as much research as I can to figure out my own electrical situation. Got slightly shocked a while back by my chain link fence gate( and it not supposed to be an electric fence😄). Ive Been benge watching Mike Holt and Benjamin S.
@@andrewhigdon8346 Even the big wig engineers at Florida Power could not answer that. Trust me, I asked that of everyone including my cousin and his boss and no one can answer that. They tried sinking 7-8 copper rods into the side yard by the power box and it made no difference. I tried and then they tried, hooking the ground to my 10" commercial well that is either 160 or 180 feet into the ground and still had voltage in the shower. It is insane, but when they disconnect the ground wire at the transformer I have ZERO voltage in the shower. I have a pump and plumbing in a garden tub and that doesn't have voltage on the metal fittings. It's truly INSANE!!!!
@@SteveP-vm1uc It is stray voltage that is on the neutral wire from your provider as in the primary wires (7200 vac). no one at the power company wants to admit this. It is caused by so many connections from the source, corrosion, weak crimp , etc
There is a device called a "ronk box" which is a "neutral isolator" commonly used by farms due to cows being shocked (very low milliamps, but you can feel it) and the cows will not milk
The distribution system is likely a multi grounded system which means the neutral on the primary side of the system is bonded to ground in multiple locations. The primary neutral at the pad mount transformer is also bonded to the secondary neutral and tied to ground. Your house is likely between the substation and downstream load. You mentioned in your video that current will flow through all paths and this is what's going on here. Your house and ground system is a parallel path back to the source.
that, or the earth electrodes at the transformer pad now have an insufficiently low impedance when compared to when they were originally installed by the utility and tested (weren't they? what is the acceptable upper limit in that jurisdiction?)
The small amount of current that you're receiving back to your ground is because you're ground is in the ground. Because of the amount of current you're receiving consider what is called a ground battery which is what's generated when water copper and some other form of ferrous metal whether it be steel, zinc, galvanized pipe etc is creating current.
WYE System multi grounded
Neutral to Earth Voltage. It's just distribution current flowing through the system, multi point grounding.
Use your meter with one lead connected to remote earth (or ground if you prefer) and use the other probe to test the Neutral. You should see a small AC voltage. You could pull the supply authority's meter and the voltage will still be present. Most electricians including this one aren't aware of this type of thing, as it's mostly to do with the supply authority. It's all in the bonding and grounding standards if you're willing to dig deep enough though.
Awful
This is real troubleshooting! I'm used to tracking down strange issues like this doing the live audio work that I do. That much current on the ground could cause wacky issues with audio and lightning gear, especially with the newer digital equipment we use.
patthesoundguy Yes Sir. If you do not have an adequate ground then inductance, noise can be introduced into a receiver that overcomes some of the noise cancelation properties of the circuit. This is less of a problem with digitized equipment that the old analog systems. It can still cause headaches for the technician.
Yes less noise in the digital equipment, but the computers themselves can become “confused” by the erratic currents and voltages throughout their respective paths. The analog gear will still work properly but can manifest with noise, or maybe not work properly because the erratic power can over stress the capacitors and cause performance issues or failure.
Great video! I'm no expert, but it looks to me that you have proved that your ground system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. There is always the chance of having some current potential (voltage) between a power system and ground, hence why we need to ground (bond) our house to the power station via the Earth.
8:18 and now I am fully hooked to finish the video!! All off circuits and still current...
I saw a similar problem on a farm in Illinois. Horses wouldn’t drink from their (heated) troughs because of shocking. I eliminated the possibility of induction from the long run of wires. I didn’t consider the neutral leg from the transformer, but that could have been the source. Good video!
Congrats bud on your success!! You're definitely learning and you're work speaks for itself. Presentation is 90% of the grade.
Thanks!
Ben, congrats for this great and educational video. I believe that you have excessive leakage current in the transformer. Usually acceptable leakage currents are in the order of a few mA where most leakage is due to the capacitive currents that are created from the difference in voltage across the insulating barrier in the transformer windings. As you are measuring hundreds of mA of leakage with everything disconnected, perhaps you should check your transformer specifications for leakage current and see where you are. Another thing to consider, this can also be caused by ground loops. Keeps us posted on your findings, and great content.
I am guessing you are on the right track, but having lived in rural USA, most people assume pad transformer is fed with 2 hot phases at 1250 volts. In rural areas, sometimes 3 hots and a neural is not in place. This results in a 1 hot and 1 neutral, and guess what? the neutral is bonded to ground. Not all primary current returns to the substation over the long neutral wire. Some takes an alternate route. This is actually common in rural areas where 3 phase power is not provided. If he reads the tag on the transformer, it may list the primary as 7200 instead of 1250 volts.
See if the primary is one of these common voltages. Common primary line voltages are 2,300, 4,160, 12,470, 13,800, 25,000 and 34,500 volts depending on which distribution voltages a utility uses. Other voltages such as 7200 indicate a one hot from one phase to neutral on the primary.
It's not "leakage", is all due to voltage drop.
I applaud you for getting high quality sound in your videos. The Rode Wireless Go is a nice choice.
I live near one of the largest marina towns in Europe. Most people have unusual erosion on sacrificial anodes on outboard drives on their boats, moored by their back garden, as ground currents make their way back from canalside villas and apartment blocks through the water, passing in and out through underwater fittings on boat hulls, offering less resistance than the canal water - which differs in salinity according to the last rain shower. Fascinating subject, Ben, great videos. Keep it up ! OFSO
so would this cause ground current on the boats wiring? Trying to understand it all! Also, current can travel in water, does that mean it can electrocute people or it very weak?
Had a buddy with similar issue. Ended up being city water pipes. Older homes was very common to ground to city pipes and someone else's house was causing the current.
Bonding conductive water pipes is still common practice today.
Ben, for the purists power is amperage x voltage. If there is amperage (current) then there has to be voltage. However minimal. I was not surprised when you found stray current from the utility. I believe that many utilities tie their neutral, or the “shield” of a buried high voltage cable to the neutral of the secondary. This distributed ground dissipates faults and lightning. That is why copper thieves some time get nasty surprises when cutting ground wiring that might be in a fault condition, allowing the voltage to soar up and shock or burn them. You did an excellent diagnosis. Good work.
Oh ya. Good call turning the power back on when the boss rolled in. Smart man
By now he should be an expert in reprogramming all of his digital clocks (i.e. stove, microwave, coffeemaker, etc.)
I love the fact that he knows exactly what each breaker feeds.
It's called a label.
@@human_shaped yeah. But how often do you see a box that has accurate labels? Still impressive in my opinion.
@@josephherron7671 Agreed. I have one breaker I have no idea what it's for. I'll find out one day I'm sure. At least I have 29/30 identified and documented on a type written schedule ;-)
Point No. 1 This current simply the primary neutral current, all of your grounding electrodes are in parallel with the utility neutral. Watch this video so you understand - ruclips.net/video/a_nv_Q9WbeE/видео.html
Point No. 2 Current/electricity is NOT going to ground. Watch this video so you understand - ruclips.net/video/mpgAVE4UwFw/видео.html
You were measuring utility primary neutral current and it's normal, since you had the EGC connected to a grounding electrode. If you had placed your current meter on any of the grounding electrode conductors you would have measured primary neutral current as well. Also you would measure current on the telephone line, as well as the CATV cable. That's just how our electrical system works.
Hey Mike! Thank you for sharing your expertise! Obviously I still have a lot to learn. I have a lot of respect for your work! Would you ever be interested in collaborating on a video?
@@BenjaminSahlstrom You do a great job with the video and I'm sure I can help in the technical content. So the answer is YES!
@@MikeHoltNEC That would be awesome! What is the best way to get in contact with you? If you want you can email me at bensahlstrom@gmail.com and then we can go from there. Once this virus stuff is over with maybe we could even do an in person collaboration. What part of the country are you located approximately? We are in the Southwest Minnesota area.
Congrats on that Yes. Mike Holt in the man. His material helped me get my Jman's and will soon be used to get my Masters next year.
Mike,
Question about CSST branch gas lines. During an electrical seminar a few years past, it was mentioned that CSST branch gas lines have to be bonded to the service neutral (which is bonded to the grounding electrode) in the main panel box of a residential building for the purpose of grounding the gas distribution system. The reason being is that lighting strikes, even from many blocks away, can energize and damage the gas line eventually causing a gas fire. You state in your video on electrical grounding that the grounding electrode does not provide protection from lighting strikes. What is an effective way to protect the CSST pipe from lighting especially since the electricity typically jumps on the pipe from a nearby object and not up the gas line from the earth?
Really enjoyed both of your videos.
That was excellent troubleshooting! Very methodical. You have a good grasp of what you should see and then compare it to what's really there. Well done. Greetings from Arizona.
Felix the Cat a wonderful wonderful cat when ever he gets in a fix he reaches in his bags of tricks
i grew up watching the morning cartoon and love felix chevrolet dealership in downtown los angeles with Felix on the roof. sad day when it came down
@@fvrrljr Yes, he's a wonderful cat. But the master cylinder still bothers me. 😁
@@mikeburch2998 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA my little brother favorite was Vavoom!
Ben, my thoughts in regards to this kind of scenario is that the 0V of the MV/HV Neutral/centre is finding its way for ANY/Better/Nearer Grounding at the(your) localities.
Even though their Grounding Network of their Neutrals are of the Lowest Ground Resistance ie Zero Ohm, but at yr localities too are Interconnected into 'another network' of Grounding via yr own Rods, Bonding to Neutrals, direct/indirect bonding of gas/water pipes etc.
There surely be some Ground Resistance BETWEEN 0V MV/HV Neutral aka Service Entrance Neutral AND yr Localised Grounding and/or Bonding(remember that yr Neutral are Ground Bonded in MainPanel).
The difference between these two sets of 'grounding' which could be just few upto few hundreds of Ohms will result in the rise of Potential(both frm the Service Neutral Currents under comunity Load, and localised miniature/'hidden' currents).
Generally the 0V of MV/HV Neutral aka Service Entrance Neutral albeit Lowest of Resistance and 'strongest', will DEGRADE under Load(community) made worst after running for many miles...
So like it or not, some 'currents' present in the Service Neutral will try to 'creep' to the Nearest Ground available(yr Grounding & Bonding) rather than taking a long way back to its 'best network of Neutrals'.
That is how you register some low amperage on the Service Neutral with yr localised Grounding/Bonding interconnected to it.
It may be improper grounding at the utility side. The neutral on the secondary of their transformer may be floating at a voltage higher than ground. This happens because the wire itself has some resistance and the current flowing through it will create a voltage of greater than 0 at any point that isn't properly grounded. So the current you are seeing may be from the current flowing from the neutral's increase potential to ground at your properly grounded panel.
Great work Ben, it’s interesting to see how electrical systems differ in deferent countries. Many years ago I had a similar situation and found that if we bridged out and grounded the CT’s (current transform’s) that are installed in the main panel during the test the current to ground reading disappeared, also the consumption meter could be an influence. It could be a good idea to check that the centre point of the transformer has been grounded. You never know this could be helpful good look with with solving this problem.
Couldn't agree more! I would love to see how the typical UK (I'm assuming based on your account picture) electrical system is set up. Maybe someday I'll get the chance to visit and a few videos could be made on the topic! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and blessings from Minnesota!
Ground? You guys say earth, mate. lol
Aaron Kaase, We certainly do, Aaron but when in Rome we do as the Romans do.
@@davidgoulden586 You should watch John Ward's videos, he does deep dives into UK electrics. I enjoy watching how it's done across the pond!
Great video again... Keep them coming... In the utility company, if we were doing readings with no ppe on, safety glasses, FR clothing and 240 insulated gloves.. Looking at a 20 day suspension.....
Thx for these videos I have an hvac license with basic electrical and this shit really has helped me find issues and solve problems when I see them
I of coarse do my own research before I believe anyone on RUclips
@@TheLuckyman7726 Exactly! You always need to double check the information that you see on RUclips. Thanks for the comment!
Love your videos. I design and install solar. Just a heads up for what its worth - my lead solar electrician says that the appliance readings on Sense unfortunately are pretty inaccurate. He hopes that their algorithms that recognize specific appliances by their electrical consumption patterns will improve as more people use it, but he really loves e-gauge. It's more expensive, but each circuit has its own CT so you know exactly what each circuit is consuming. Lots of our solar customers love it.
I love your video's! I thought for sure a bad WH element...now I'm thinking with the fluctuation in current it's a back feed from the grid...(your neighbors).
In other words, all of the scenarios that you described are reading through your multi-meter due to the neighbors bad WH elements and the like.
whoever wired that box up is a MASTER! it's a piece of ART :) beautiful work.
Minnesota requires that all breakers be labeled. and the box better look like that inside or the state inspector isn't going to put his sticker on it.
bundling in what stupid people do, that's zip tying all the wires, say you have to trace a wire to a breaker now it's a head ache , trust me I've been wiring for 30 years, most inspectors will fail a panel like that
@@m.newkirk887 That's simply not true.
thanks for doing these videos, I had to install A brand new sub panel at my house, it only had three wires going to the main.
My new box had two lugs, one for only the grounds and the other for only the neutrals,
I first called an electrician, and the guy that came by and looked at it said he was afraid he would lose his license if he worked on it because it wasn't a 4 wire feed to the box. so I had to do it myself, while waiting on another electrician that was to busy for me. your videos helped me out so much.
the new subpanel is a seimans, and the neutrals and grounds are all on a seperate lug strip, the bonding screw removed.
I had to have the grounding lug connected to 6 g solid wire, and grounded to copper pipe, due to the location of the box this was the best way for me. and the big white wire coming from the main box, is for only neutrals on the subpanel.
I subscribed to your channel out of appreciation for your videos, and discussions on subpanels, and how they should be wired up.
Thanks so much.
Thank you everyone… especially you Ben… I am a self taught HVAC contractor who runs into stay voltage issues regularly… this has helped my thought process!
chetfoster I suggest watch a 13 part series called _What on earth happened_ by Ewaranon to learn that the earth is not a globe.
I got it in my about tab.
Curious, what problems do you encounter with stray voltage Chet?
After watching one of your other videos and then this one, I would like to see you place your meter on the transformer and the physical ground (looking to see if there is a gradient with that stray current). It is a regular occurrence that people are getting killed all of the time because of fault currents (Mike Holt explains this in his grounding video "Where's the Ground?").
Please let me know how it comes out.
Nice video! A couple of things... Don't get too wound up on the semantics. Ampmeter and ammeter are the same thing, other than the p, of course. Their purpose is to measure the amount of current moving through a conductor and display the value in units called amperes. Also, on current vs power, just remember the basics. Voltage will always equal current times resistance, and power will always equal voltage times current. So, when you say "it's not power, it's current", it's actually both. In this case, you don't know how much power because you didn't say what the voltage is. Is 1/4 amp a lot of power? Maybe, maybe not, depends on the voltage. Is that situation dangerous? Again, depends, 1/4 amp at 1 volt probably isn't , but 1/4 amp at a few thousand volts it probably is.
I thought it was the current that kills you.
Regardless if it's 1 volt or 100kV at a quarter amp, it's still high enough past the let go threshold and if it has a path through your heart then you're screwed.
@@that1electrician .25A through the wire at e.g. 5V won't cause .25A through your body to ground. 0A through the wire at 240V WILL cause dangerous current through your body to ground. Without the voltage you cannot get the current that will kill you
Alan Woods, you are correct that if there is current there is power, but volts times amps is apparent power (S) in AC. You have to consider the phase angle between the current and the voltage, and the cosine of this angle is called the power factor. Real power (P) is volts times amps times power factor. In a purely resistive load, the power factor is 1 so the real power is volts times amps, but in a purely inductive or capacitive load the power factor would be 0, so real power would be 0, even with voltage and current.
@@chrisgutierrez5759 Agreed. Power Factor is a thing. I didn't go into that, partly because I was intentionally trying to not get into a bunch of extra details. But mostly because I got lazy and just didn't feel like trying to explain that in 7,258 words or less. ;)
You can't have a current flow if there is no potential (Voltage). So while technically it's true that "current kills you", there has to be sufficient voltage to push that current through your body. That depends on many factors but most Electrical Safety training consider anything over 60 Volts AC sufficient voltage to push a deadly amount current through your body.
Waiting to see how you resolve this. Im very curious. I know enough to realize how much I don't know. Keep them coming i really want to see the end of this one.
Ben on the farm, on one of the livestock wells, we had current on the ground lead.
The one line man said that it was not a problem. Two days before Christmas at 4:30, -10°f, L1 was 75 volts, L2 was 162 volts.
The line men got to come out and change the transformer.
The ground line went to 0.2 volts. Which is good.
Good luck from north east Montana.
You can get the same situation (unbalanced line voltages) from there being NO ground path, if the load current is unbalanced. Also, voltages which show up when there is no load, particularly on an electronic meter, can be wildly misleading. Old mechanical meters are much less likely to display this problem, because they require actual non-zero current in order to give any reading at all. Modern meters can have nearly infinite input resistance on the voltage ranges, which allows them to respond to radio and even audio frequency electromagnetic waves passing by. To minimize that particular problem, it helps to keep the meter leads twisted together as much as possible.
Anything over 10V ground to neutral should get the attention of the electricty supplier. Usually the xformer or the transmission system grounding isn't adequate.
Google transient voltage in Wisconsin dairy farms.
As an engineer, I have performed many tests and written several articles about stray voltage and ground current over the years. You have found ~200ma of stray ground current on the panel grounding conductor. Since current never flows into an open (except in RF, another topic), the same ~200ma you found will be also be found on one or more other grounded conductors within the very same panel. This includes grounds and neutrals. And since this is a ground current issue, it has nothing to do with breakers or loads, hence your lack of any change as you eliminated them. Use your ammeter and look at each and every ground and neutral, one at a time. Some will be zero and some will have a small amount of current. I can guarantee that they will add up to your ~200ma. You are also mixing primary with secondary grounding in your discussion toward the end of your video. These are usually two different grounding systems. Primary is distribution and secondary is subscriber. Primary and secondary are not directly intertwined.
What you wrote is probably all correct except for the last sentence. Distribution transformers actually do have a common ground between the primary and secondary. Most engineers outside of the power distribution industry don't know this, though. See section VI(B) of the article at this link:
www.ecs.csun.edu/~bruno/MultiGroundedNeutralFinal_4-17-7.pdf
Yep, Louis is right. The primary and secondary neutrals are bonded together at the transformer, and are often the same wire! This can lead to significant stray voltage on all grounds and neutrals on the customer side of things in the event of a utility losing a neutral if there is bad grounding.
Nobody cares if you are an engineer.
Having said this, and it is true, isn't that 200ma of 220 or 440 and isn't that enough to be a problem the utility needs to resolve?
@@krakenwoodfloorservicemcma5975 Is a kraken an octopus or a squid?
There are hundreds of good write ups on field piece units when I was trying to decide what meter to get. I did however see several write ups on thos meters picking up "Ghost readings" on various settings where other meters did not. Just throwing it out there. You have great videos, thank you.
I love your channel. I love to troubleshoot jobs like this, this was a head scratcher. Look forward watching more of your videos
It could be a loose or corroded neutral connection at the meter. I had one and traced the leaking ground current to an underground gasoline storage tank pump motor. The steel tank was a excellent ground which was sharing the neutral current back to the utility transformer neutral. Called the utility and they found a corroded aluminum crimp connection on the over head service triplex line.
I love the follow up video Ben!! You are fun to watch! Electrical videos are the way to go :) The comments you pulled up and referenced was a great touch! By the way, you may have forgotten to insert a card at 0:25 or maybe it just didn't show up on my computer..
Thanks! I'll double check that card. For some reason I have had several people say that the cards haven't been showing even when it was there. It is easy to forget to link them before publishing though!
@@BenjaminSahlstrom from what I have noticed cards only come up on computers, not so much on ipads, phones etc.
@@garbelfunkle a
Return curing jumps resistance
It's static discharge from petting that cat. The dry winter air makes it more pronounced.
I knew it!
That's as good as any other effect I can think of.
And I was thinking the cat carried it from the transformer to the house!
Nope the cat does not have alternating caterrent.
The cat kept rubbing up against his pants leg!!!
This may solve the New Green Deal problem - the government should pass a law requiring every household to have one cat per occupant !
I used to work as a journeyman water well pump mechanic. There would be many times an old well sets that were leaking power. This could be at the neighbors you're well and well casing is a fantastic ground. Power Boxes by Wells a lot rusted out from the weather neutrals compromised grounds compromised. Just another Avenue to check.
We had a 220 volt well pump motor with only two wires going to it. Yep. The pump acted as the neutral/ground. Sometimes the hair on your arms would stand up when you got around the pump.
Great Video... looks like I have the same issue... I actually found this when plugging into an outlet tester and getting a closed ground, when I knew it wasn't bonded. The slight voltage on the ground was enough to light up my outlet testers closed ground. I also went to the neighbors house and found that they have the same thing going on.
Once I had an older electrician tell me that the home's electrical wiring itself produces EMF, and that consumes stray voltage, and shows as stray current. The wiring web in a home consumes current unused, unload as EMF.
Master electrician friend if mine had similar and more dangerous situation then yours. It took much discussion with the utility company to get then to test and repair there insufficient grounding rod at the nearest pole / transformer to his home. They ended up pounding down a deeper rod to cure his problem.
I like how you zip tied the wires inside the panel. Didn’t know about the 2020 surge breaker req, I’ll have to add one.
Cool video!
Remember safety first when measuring within a live panel . There’s a few good videos on arc flash / blast
Current flowing through ground wire (or neutral wire) is actually called primary neutral current as it comes from primary of distribution transformer.At the distribution transformer primary and secodary neutrals are both connected together as well as to ground.So the source of current is primary neutral current.
Thanks for this fun video, Ben. I found this after debugging a similar issue at my rural home. The culprit in my case (and I suspect yours) is that rural distribution lines are liable to carry significant voltage on their neutrals. The way to check this is to measure the voltage between the incoming neutral and the literal ground (that is, stick a rod in the ground and measure voltage to it). Our (and I assume your) transformer center tap is bonded to the power company neutral and so our entire house ground is actually a little hot. Our grounding system is crap, so the current flowing is too small to measure, but the voltage is high enough to deliver a mild shock! Incidentally, I am having a hell of a time getting my power company to take it seriously so I'm working on my own little video to publicize the problem. Cheers!
Yes, it wants to go Into ground, through the ground, and back out of the ground at the grounding electrode however far away.
Once it's made it a few meters away from the electrode, it could go miles more- the resistance of the soil is really high, but the cross sectional area of the ground is square meters- millions of times bigger than a wire.
It's that first meter that's the hard part(and the last, but that's done to a high quality).
A good video for fault finding. But in Australia we can only have an earth stake at the main switch board or we get earth looping through the ground.
Worked on a 277 lighting grid, 60 fixtures- turn off the breaker, and two fixtures would turn on instead of off!
battery backup on emergency lights?
The utility company only charges you based on current moving through A and B phase in your situation, the giveaway is that they are the only conductors in your main panel that have CT's monitoring current flow.I would like to think that if you added another ground rod further(+-15 feet) from the main panel or even in the xformer itself( it should have one on primary and one on secondary) that you would get less saturation from that ground ring at that location thus allowing the leakage from the neutral(which is normal btw)to go to ground there rather than flowing back into the house. That all depends on the resistivity of the soil the ground rods are in(black dirt=good,sandy soil=bad).Now if the ground rods were not sunk in past the permafrost layer then that would cause the system to not be able to dissipate the leakage current as well. Its been a while since Ive read my grounding and bonding textbook from the apprenticeship so everything Ive said is probably wrong.
That sounds right. I want to do some more learning and experimenting to understand this more. Interesting stuff!
Bro...how u gonna finish like that?
@@BenjaminSahlstrom It would be interesting to see if the problem subsides after you add the isolator to your gas line. Potentially one of your neighbors could have a bad circuit that is bleeding back through the gas line, or just the fact you have a separate network ground through all that metal gas line pipe is finding a voltage source that feeds to ground, only a very slight difference in the gas lines "earth" ground and the power companies "earth" ground would still show up in small amounts of current flow (voltage potentia). Other possibilities: do you have an old analogue phone line drop? If so there is another voltage source shared through the region. Also if there is current then there is voltage and therefore, "power" , so you aren't wrong to say power is transferring if you see current above zero, it may not be very much power but it is power none the less.
Thanks! My garage sub panel was installed by and old timer electrician friend who has since died. But, sure enough, the bonding screw was installed, so I removed it. Thanks again.
That was fun. I always like trying work problems like that. Thanks for inviting us.
I think it would be helpful to measure the current at each ground rod, including the one at the transformer. Using that, you could visualize the voltage gradients between them in the earth driving those currents.
maybe you could track the source by driving stakes into the ground .. one cental point and then several in a radius of say 20 ft.. mearure Vc and Current between all points and center rod.. this may give a dirctional indication. It would aso depend on soil resitivity and dampness though.. very tricky situation..
@benjamin
In CO we don't allow bonding on the gas line. The steel lines actually carry a small current because of electrolysis which is why they connect sacrificial anodes to the lines and bury them with the pipe. I'm curious if that uninsulated union is contributing to that stay current.
Gas lines can carry current from house to house so they can spread problems. Now there are reason to bond to
Hello Ben, Great vidz u make. I spoke to a utility wrkr who told me, ," If a neighbor lost their
neutral, current could flow to ground at neighbors house up to the neutral/ground bus and
then return to pole via neighbors neutral."
Electric companies can sometimes lose current into the ground from their underground wiring. I once spent a week trouble shooting a railway that had enough stray voltage on one track to stop the level crossings from operating. Other tracks were not affected, and I noticed that the side where the track was affected had 5 telephone poles with end connections converting to underground wires that went under the railway. We contacted the utility and after lots of delays and politics, they finally admitted to losing 70 amperes of current into the ground!
Man, I think you gotta measure the current on all of the neutral and ground wires in the breaker box with the mains off to trace where this current is going. I'd be a little worried about making any new connections to the neutral until figuring out where it's going.
Differential Ground Potential at each grounded connection - That's my thought. At some point, you may want to remove each ground from the "group" and isolate which may have the highest VOLTAGE differential to the CT of the MAIN XFMR. We know the CT cannot be absolutely the perfect point in the center of the XFMR windings, but with output (secondary) power off and (primary) power on, there is still a potential set up there with respect to the ground rod at that point, however isn't that point tied to a ground of the XFMR? (I don't know) I know if you set metal in the ground even 4-10ft apart (with adequate moisture & not too much), you can measure a different DC potential between each.
As a retired tech, I ran in to situations like this affecting sensitive systems. I also encountered harmonics at certain panels caused by electronics without isolation transformers, this was an interesting challenge for me.
I respect you so much for not acting like a "know it all expert" as many YT channels do, but you engage the audience and really get everyone involved. That's how we all get to learn. Also you learned, and try to correctly use the technical terms of voltage, current, and power. That makes for optimum communication. I say "well done" to you, sir and please continue so we all get to learn something from your situation.
I always look to see if someone else posted what I was about to say. You beat me to it. Congrats. People mistakenly think that all "earth" is at exactly the same potential everywhere, as if the earth is a perfect conductor. If that were true, we wouldn't need a buried grounding grid in the soil at a transformer station.
Disconnect the ground rods at the substation (with everything shut off) and then see if the current still runs through the EGC. If it is, then there is a potential between the earth at the primary and secondary panels. No surprise--no harm.
While I agree completely that there is a grounding problem, the gas line needs to be fixed first. Maybe it's just me but I've never seen the lifting lugs being left in the transformer. If that's a sign of carelessness, then Jason Goetz probably has it nailed perfectly, the transformer grounds need work.
I know this is an old thread but maybe someone will find my addition to the comment useful. I agree with Je Mart and his grounding issue comments. If you look at the literal ground it has ice on it and could be frozen. This will provide poorer grounding conditions resulting in more resistance between the various earth ground points. I bet after a good rain storm the amount of current going through the wire will drop. Are these systems not supposed to be tied to earth ground in one location instead of multiple locations?
I am retired from the FAA and I worked on electronic navigation and ILS systems. We had a problem with one of our systems that would occasionally shut down due to a self monitored parameter that would stray out of tolerance. When we would arrive at the site to check everything all would be within tolerance but the memory onboard indicated which parameter went out of tolerance.
After much head scratching by several techs we noticed a slight variation of electrical power coming in to our facility, the variation was sinusoidal, low voltage (we placed an oscilloscope on the incoming power to look at it) but enough that it would cause the sensitive electronics to to vary enough to shut our system down, not always but intermittently. One of the electricians assisting the electronics techs noticed the neutral was bonded to the ground in the disconnect of our ILS building as well as where the power was delivered to us by the utility company, about 100 yards from the disconnect.
Once the bonding in the building disconnect was removed, the sinusoidal wave on the power provided to our equipment disappeared. We had a ground rod at the building and at the power pole 100 yards away and the neutral bonding was done at both locations. Removing it at our facility building also removed the low voltage sine wave (millivolts) riding on the incoming power and stopped our intermittent shutdowns. It took us a number of manhours to locate what was causing our problem but it was a lesson learned.
JeMart..did you ever encounter stray voltage that affected people health in any way? Is it possible to feel current in an entire house? We something that feels like magnetic force..maybe it's current. Found 1.7 on cable ground line and no one is taking responsibility
As I tried to explain in your former video, (It's hard for me to write, since I'm not english speaking native, I live in El Salvador, Central America), "your" ground resistance is "better" than before you entrance panel. You can measure both values with a ground resistance meter or earth meter. Actually, in the market there are two types, Vener method and clamp meter. I think that the right place for testing is the entrance panel. After disconnecting power switch, isolate your neutral of the distribution system. Then, perform measuring of both neutrals. Very probably the resistance of your neutral will be lower than that of the distribution company.
The underground wires to my cabin were installed by previous homeowner and he used overhead wires pulled through metal conduit. The two hot wires were spirally wrapped around the neutral and that resulted in an electromagnet. Not sure if the metal conduit was a contributing factor, but there was a hell of a spark when I disengaged the main fuses, a knife switch sort of thing. It drove me crazy trying to trouble shoot. Finally realized the problem, unwrapped the wires and re pulled 'em, problem solved. Electric bill went way down, radio static stopped and I had heard of stray current problems with the livestock of last guy was probably caused by this. Might be your issue. See if the wires are run paralell underground.
Ohms law, need to know the voltage to know if it’s actually any real amount of wattage. I think you simply have a difference of potential between the locations of the two panels. Disconnect the wire and check voltage on each end with power off, and then measure the amperage with a shunt rather than the inductive pickup. Bottom line, there’s no real issue most likely, your meter is just too capable of showing currents at very low voltage which is tricking you.
Exactly what I was thinking, if he had a low impedance meter those readings would most likely vanish..
As I commented to you previously:
The current you are reading leaving the ground wire on your sub panel is most likely due to the difference in potential between the ground rod at the sub panel and the ground potential at the main panel (ground rod and neutral line from the power company). I would venture to say you will never find two ground rods that have the same potential on them unless the are very close to each other.
To say it in a different way, your ground rods are providing a return path to the power grid for other houses in your area.
Roy...
Or a bad bug on neutral at service head.Had an instance of a guy telling me he would get shocked when he took a shower...the neutral connection was all corroded at the drip loop .Sub panels were grounded to water pipes
@@damistavista9539 - I'm not a power distribution engineer but my guess is that this is not uncommon and I suspect it is nothing to worry about. However, it wouldn't hurt to have the power company come check it out to see if they have a real fault or not. Roy...
except the ameter only measures AC current, so the current induced by a static voltage difference won't show up with that
You are correct, a residential FM2 240v 3w electric meter only uses the two conductor wires to measure current when there’s load (usage). 19:53
It is a long way between your house ground rod & the pole at the road. This could be induced over the buried cable. The path of the neutral & the path through the ground itself makes a loop into which current could be induced. This is why line crews attach straps between long de-energized lines at the pole so they don't get shocks from the dead lines. The loop formed between two ground pegs on two poles spaced apart returning along the neutral can also form this loop.
How about a vedio on troubleshooting arcfalt circuit that trips
Important!!! What ever you do, DO NOT lift any of those grounds coming from the transformer!!! If your ground is the only ground for that transformer and you lift that ground you will have the same high voltage potential on the side of the ground that was connected to the transformer! Just like an open neutral will have full voltage on it. This can be up to 14kV depending on your distribution voltage. I highly doubt you are the only ground, but it has happened. Call the utility and tell them what you found, they should roll a truck to come and verify the connections. Now on to my original possible explanation......
Looks like you have a less resistive ground, or only the only ground for the distribution transformer and you are reading some of the magnetization current for it. Could also be sharing current with the transformer ground. There should be a ground for the transformer at the transformer pad. Also, something that can influence a higher ground current is if your ultilites power system is a SWER, (single wire, earth return). Not that common, but with that there is just the one high voltage wire feeding the distribution in your area and relies on the earth for the return. That type of system does not have separate neutral strung along with the distribution for the return. Normally your distribution transformer will be fed with one high voltage and the neutral, which is also bonded to ground at the pole and at all transformers too. Look at the pole that feeds your transformer. You'll see the riser cable and the cable center conductor comes off the fuse and there will be some bare copper wire or tape that will be connected to another bare wire on the pole. That's called a concentric neutral, that connects to the system neutral and if that is not there, you have a SWER. In either case, it just sounds like your house grounds has a less resistance to ground than the ground that the transformer has. The only problem I see with that is if there is a lighting strike or the transformer itself faults to ground it can impress high voltages on to your grounding system.
Spot on. Resistance of tx grounging is higher than house ground.
Hence the flow of ampage and variance
Je Mart brought up some significant items. I initially wired our house when we built it with 2 dedicated ground rods, placed about 10 feet apart. When I set up my Ham Shack (KB4ZUS) I isolated the shack with 2 more rods dedicated only to the shack. I did notice a current difference between the two ground systems, I think 15 Ma between them, and finally tied them together. Pro's and Con's, we're only speaking about a very small differential. Good, Bad? please send opinions. All subfeed panels have their own ground rods as well. That is code now, wasn't then, but as we all know, ground is not necessarily planet earth.
Mike holt in one of his many great videos explain in detail how there is some type of current leakage coming from the main grid... I can't recall the name of the video but it is worth it to look for it...
If you built that panel, I must say I wish all electricians were that meticulous.
A lot of us are, The customer just doesn't want to pay for the electrician to stand there for a couple extra hours.
That thing is immaculate
Yeh they are usually that meticulous when they do it at home. His wiring is done like most of the servers I've worked on... like the client is going to see it!
@@rakketz5976 a couple extra hours? it shouldnt take any more time to make it look clean. that panel is disgusting by my standard.
@@justheretowatch9451 I don't know what kind of electrician you are, you must be superman. You should consider taking your talents to the IDEAL electricians competition.
You my young friend are truly a pleasure! Thank you so much.
I’m headed soon to a ‘cowboy’ friends ranch to track down some ‘stray current’ or ‘phantom voltage’ @ his horse watering trough.
I’m gonna re-speak a lot of your words while out there. I will pay a ‘royalty’ in the form of food or beverage. You just need to come to Calgary Alberta Canada!
THANK YOU!!!
Thanks for all your great videos, im sure they inspire alot of people, I have a sub panel with 12 50 amp breakers that run into separate apartments no electric stoves just gas and was wondering if there is a way to hook up the sense to each breaker to the individual apartments so there would be 12 connections
😅🤣😂💯
Where I live, the power distribution company has ground pads on the bottom of poles to run a solid copper ground to the center tap of the transformer, sounds like the center tap is not grounded at your transformer so if you take one lead of the ac voltmeter to the point in your panel that connects to the transformer center tap to a ground rod right below your panel you will read some ac bolts due to the differential potential. It only takes 10 milli amps current flow through the heart to cause cardiac arrest so the .041 amps you are seeing is 41 milli amps and four times what it takes to kill a person so never touch that center tap with you feet firmly grounded.
40x. His meter read 410mA.
10ma through a open skin wound directly to the bold stream. Your skin resistance will keep a higher power from killing you
dtimboggs Thank you, my point was that it will kill you so better safe than sorry.
Joe Ballard thanks for pointing that out. I totally overlooked it. That is enough to cause death considering an average person only has around 500 ohms resistance from their fingers to their toes. There are a lot of variables to be considered though. He said the nearest copper pipe ground was in the field so if the ground at the pole was good and what looked to be 60 or 70 yards then from center tap to the copper ground would easily cause a 410ma current drain. As I had said earlier, it has to be a faulty ground at the transformer. Thanks again👍🇺🇸
It will be grounded. There's no chance it won't be.
Leakage current is generally 210 micro amperes
What important most home have to outdoor clamp are old rusted badly to grounding connections. Need put new one on more better properly better grounding.
David White Great advice Sir. You are right. That causes a high resistance between earth ground and the panel which can be very dangerous.
Interesting video! I have a similar issue but we are talking about 7Amps flowing into the grounded city water pipe with my main breaker off. They are currently investigating but i suspect a neighbour leaking to ground and me catching it because there is 0 amp flowing in the transformer neutral to ground a few houses down.
I think what is happening is that there is service in your area that is using the ground as neutral. There is then a current going through the ground from one side of your property through the ground. I think a portion of that is going through the grounding system between the main panel you have out by the driveway, the home, and the gas line. I think that is more likely than there being some form of leakage or induced current on the ground from your transformer.
Would like to see the current readings on the outside ground rods. And any other earthed source.
We need the help of ElectroBOOM!
I can mention, that the power company in some cases depends on all services to be properly grounded to help them ground their system as well. Remember all grounds need to be a the same potential, any potential difference may also result in a possible voltage. With the power off, You could also have checked each of your ground conductors of your branch circuits. I wonder if you were to lift the suspect grounds, isolate it, then check for any small voltage between it and a grounded conductor. You could also lift your main ground and see if there is any difference in potential (voltage) the solid ground going to your ground rods.
This is Neutral to Earth Voltage (NEV). Mike Holt has an excellent video that explains why the utility neutral voltage drop causes this to occur on the EGC/GEC.
How about a ground current (in the earth) from one ground rod outside at the meter, to the ground rod at the house?
Sometimes this situation is caused by the "galvanic action" in the soil itself,which can act as a large battery. When you have acidic soil, wet soil, iron deposits, etc. they can all contribute to the ground actually creating a current on a building's distributed grounding system. Even a single building ground can be interacting with a utility ground on a pole somewhere nearby. You did an excellent job chasing down the source. I had the utility come and disconnect the power leads at the pole, turn off every circuit, pull out the meter and there was still 2 amps on my building grounds. In the end they left completely unable to resolve the issue.
Gary Jarvis
-- To expand on your 'galvanic' point: Dis-similar materials are required, usually metals such as copper and zinc. In this video, grounding rods and the gas pipe are copper and the conduit from the transformer/meter area outside are galvanized (coated with zinc), so there is a good setup for both a galvanic current AND electrolytic corrosion. You REALLY do not want electrolytic corrosion on gas pipes. Luckily (in Ben's scenario) that corrosion will erode zinc, but not copper. BUT those galvanic currents will be Direct Current, and the clamp-on ammeter looks like it was on AC Amps. Unless that little ammeter has problems itself, it should ignore DC when set to measure AC Amps. There is also some rectification possible in a galvanic circuit, which _might_ show up while measuring AC Amps. It would be helpful to measure DC amps as well. To really be sure might require use of a battery-powered oscilloscope and a current transformer. Source of the power being rectified could be radio waves, solar storms, other electrical power users in the area, or even at significant distance if high voltage is involved. Also, it would help to measure the voltage, both AC and DC, when these mystery currents are present. @Benjamin Sahlstrom
galvanic action, as you call it, Gary, does not account for 2 AMPS of current. that is way too much electrochemical power to not notice metals dissolving before your very eyes - and since that is not happening, it cannot be the current source.
irregular or varying 'ground' impedance in the power distribution network CAN account for 2 amps of current. if you can be absolutely certain no other power source is injecting current into your building's neutral system when the building's utility feed is not connected, then the power distribution network is the current source injecting that 2 amps into your building's (now proven superior) 'ground'.
@@christophersylvain4085 Thank you for your comment. You are correct that galvanic action alone may not create the full 2 amps, However, it is still an issue especially in densely populated areas like cities where there are tons of dissimilar metals in the ground. Often multiple grounds can create a "ground loop" where the potential at the different grounding points creates the flow of current. I did notice when I removed one of my grounds to the water line the situation disappeared. Our local gas company routinely puts dielectric unions in their supply lines to the house to stop the corrosion issue.
@@garyjarvis4058 i suspect gas companies in general have more rigorous adherence to their grounding design specifications in contrast to the electric utilities. whoever maintains the 'best' ground "wins" the prize of having to do more maintenance if they don't introduce those insulators (dielectric unions).
in the long history of both utility services, electric has only recently invested in underground infrastructure and then only as they are required to do so (i should make the obligatory joke about resistance to change).
population density itself does not lead to issues as much as the sheer number of installations performed and the statistics that a certain number of installs will require remediation in only a few years.
the situation where a property owner has to replace their water service feed twice in two years after a neighbor adds an out building and installs a full set of high power wood working machines can happen just as easily in an urban or rural setting. it was a broken neutral bond in the utility's system destabilizing the power distribution and causing 20 to 30 amps to flow along the water service line.
all these things combine into a SYSTEM even if the various responsible parties think of their work as being done in isolation ("kirchoff don't care", as in Kirchoff's Laws).
The electrical potential of any two points on the surface of the planet can be very different due to the dielectric properties of the rocks, soils, and water beneath them because the iron core of the planet generates a magnetic field.
The "earth" of the power company is relative to the location of their generator. If they provide a high conductance path with a "neutral" line, a current will flow.
we had the same issue before but once we made a common ground rod, the mini current vanished. Multiple grounding made a capacitive system resulting a discharge to earth of current but due to high resistance you only see that in milliamps.
Very informative. Nice work!
If that transformer had a delta/Y connection scheme having the primary winding separated from the secondary winding altogether (galvanic isolation) thus providing the Neutral from the center point of the Y connection over to the main panel then you wouldn't have that current flowing thru the ground wire as you have now. Disconnecting that current loaded ground wire at some point in the house can produce sparks and cause accidents involving gas, even if all circuit breakers are turned off including in the main panel. To avoid this kind of occurrence, the electrical company should install delta/Y transformers instead of autotransformers like the one you showed us. Any imbalance in the autotransformer windings could cause that current to flow. Power loss is yet another issue.
Delta/wye transformers are for 3 phase AC. Even with 3 phase you would have a corner tied or center tied ground which makes it essentially and autotransformer. If this is not done, then you would have an isolation transformer, which would then have no relation to ground, thus making grounding useless. You would be able to take a hot lead and connect it directly to ground and nothing would happen, at least not until another hot or neutral contacted the same ground.
Does the neutral tap on the transformer have only reference to ground at the main panel? Or does the transformer have its own reference to ground???
I am an electrical engineer with the local power company. Usually those transformers have a ground strap connection from the neutral connection to ground. Transformer pads usually have ground rods connected as well at the transformer. Is info can usually be found by your local utility standards or rus specifications.
The short answer is that there is a grounding electrode at the point of service. This is almost always an earthed connection. Ground rods / grounding plates / ufer ground. There is also an earth bond on the 0V (center tap) of the transformer from utility.
So, you have a very high resistance path through the earth itself back to the transformer in parallel with a very low resistance path through the service neutral, back to the 0V of the transformer.
Without getting too electrical-code-like here, you want your service neutral and your service load side equipment (branch circuits) grounding conductor (think your branch circuits in the building grounds), to be bonded here.
This gives a low-resistance fault path under a short circuit condition to create a sudden spike in current and trip a breaker / blow a fuse (essentially open the circuit). However, if you bond your neutrals and grounds AFTER your initial disconnect, you create a parallel path and your equipment grounding conductor becomes a current-carrying conductor.
So, your ground has no current on it when you are looking at your branch circuits (or shouldn't), but will have a current on it when you look at it before that bonding jumper at the service disconnect. In this case, that disconnect is his main panel.
Lastly, we don't want any kind of strange, unpredictable voltages to form between the earth and the 0V reference of the electrical system. We generate the voltages at the potential of the earth, and we want to keep them referenced at the potential of the earth. - Ground is ground the world round - . So, we reference our entire system to the earth to keep everything right about where it should be. Nice and predictable.
First off, I'm glad you went back to this for the video as I'm curious as well. I saw the original quite a while ago.
Well, simple science says current cannot flow without a potential difference. My guess would be voltage from something acting like an anode and cathode (battery.) Unless you have an EMF being created, the battery makes the most sense. Wasn't that gas meter union corroding? I'd look there first, see if that's the sacrificial anode (oxidation.) Current has to flow back to the anode once the electrons go to the cathode (closed circuit) in order for current to be on the ground line. You could do a bunch more testing but throw in that dielectric union and see if it subsists entirely, you're going to install it no matter what so it doesn't hurt to test before and after. The neutral tap current is more interesting, unless there's a potential difference at the grounding rod there and the tap in order to create yet another closed circuit for current to flow on.
I wish I was more knowledgeable. I do wish to see some solution to this puzzle.
Edit: Shit, I didn't see Mike Holt reply to this video. The guy's a genius. I defer all to him lol Love his videos and more technical explanations.
I stand by what I said in your first video. Your ground and neutral are connected at the main panel. This therefore, connects the two on the sub-panel. Try disconnecting the two at the main panel.
Nice job, very logical and sympathetic approach. I'd bet your correct its b/c of the transformer. Most utilities drive a ground rod to ground & bond the transformer. Likely your grounding system is the path with least resistance. Utility need to check connections or drive another rod
As soon as you mentioned multiple earth rod locations I guessed it was unequal potentials between earths. I was recently researching substations and the first lessons were on earth grids to avoid step fault dangers where you have a potential gradients as you travel away from the nearest earth point. In substations these can be lethal over only the length of a stride. Don’t know what the soil resistivity is like where you are but it is a big factor. You could look at marine galvanic isolation but I am not sure if it is a problem if your bonding is robust. Would be interesting to see what the open circuit potential difference is between earths. Good video.
Ben you are on a Underground Residential Distribution system. You have a high voltage pad mount, 240 delta system. The pad mount creates its own neutral. The high voltage windings are energized. You have the closest neutral return. Ground rods and water pipe ground. Last video you energized a ground rod. But you could not do that if it was connected to a water pipe ground.
I was getting amped up with you as you went through the process. VERY exciting!! what I really wanted to mention tho, is that photo bombing fluffy lol awwww
Very interesting! Was the source of the stray current ever discovered?
Great vid. On my system, it turned out to be my neighbour's house that we shared the same transformer, and since my ground was better than his, the neutral that we both share (as in all cases) discharged the energy into MY house ground. damn it. My ground is a city 3/4 inch water pipe (type k copper). You cant get a better ground than that. So we turned off his breakers, and bam, we found it, his sump pump. LOL. woohoo.
Yes indeed! We had a second set of ground rods on an old service that was causing stray current back through the pole transformer to our neighbors barn, the darn cows could feel it in their feet. Stray current can absolutely cross back through to your neighbor if you share a transformer!!
Dang, how was his ground so poor that traveling to your house was the path of least resistance?
@@nickmcwilliams685 i have a type k copper water pipe with 2 ground rods, that makes my ground the best.
@@MrTooTechnical I understand that but given the physical distance between buildings and all the wires it's suprising that your ground is still the path of least resistance. Without knowing the layout I'm just armchairing.
@@nickmcwilliams685 trust me, my ground kicks ass. You cant get a better connection to the earth than an 8 foot deep, 100 foot horizontal, type k 3/4 inch copper line; with supplemented ground rods. woohoo.
You may check if here are any pipelines in your area that may have a rectifier connected to the pipe. It's possible that the polarity of he rectifier needs reversed. I ran into this many times picking up readings on mobile home frames as well as electrolisis causing anchor rods on our utility poles to rust & corrode in the ground on down guys that were bonded to the system neutral. This stopped when an insulator was installed in the down guy. The primary winding has one end bombed to the case of the tank & the secondary neutral bushing is also bonded to the case & primary underground cable has concentric neutral wires wrapped around it that's bonded to the case that is bonded to ground rod. Just some thoughts.
Definitely sounds like a ground loop. (that's why multiple building grounds must be bonded.) You have a number of grounding points in the house that aren't so easy to disconnect... water, gas, coax cable... You'd have to disconnect all other ground points. Or disconnect the ground between the main and sub panel. It is indeed odd to see current on the service neutral with no current on the service conductors. (A call to the utility might be in order.)