+3v out of the ground wire??

[flatcat]

Hi there
An oddity, here.
My horses and goats were dodging the water trough, which has a floating deicer.
Long story short, turned out the ground was putting out a little current. A tech guy from the deicer manufacturer said it could be a poor ground [this is in the barn, whose panel runs off a 30A line from the house a hundred feet away and is grounded by a rod], or could actually be coming from the power company. Some remark on the web said the latter also.
This was not happening last year.

Solution was a pigtail into the extension cord, with a separate ground rod.

But what the heck is this, and do I need to do anything about it generally?

Mostly curious.

Flatcat

 

[MDJ]

If not get some of these they can handle anything

 

[flatcat]

MJD I will observe the multimeter more closely but not that picture.
E54 will you be flying over to help? (MJD has vehicle).

 

[Engineer54]

MJD I will observe the multimeter more closely but not that picture.
E54 will you be flying over to help? (MJD has vehicle).

Could be arranged, IF you send me a return air ticket HK/NY (or your nearest international airport)

Other than that, I take it, that you're not too bothered then??

 

[DPG]

I'm with Eng here - if you suspect something is potentially (yes, I know dangerous with the install then get someone qualified to check it out. Not worth risking. Daz

 

[Silly Sausage]

I try and resist electrical puns.

 

[flatcat]

Perfectly at peace with the situation.

I got the original advice from a tech at the deicer company. Apparently not unheard-of. For the nonce, the deicer is grounded and the "herd"* are comfortable drinking the water.
Came to the forum out of curiosity, mainly. If investigation leads to the likelihood of something's needing to be corrected, I go from there. Thanks for that input. I'll take it seriously.

Hope to have more info to report later today, i.e., pix as requested and try some more receptacles with the wimpy little tiny ineffectual multi-tester, which I will also examine for a zeroing button.


*three horses & 4 goats

 

[Marvo]

I dunno what that means, much less how to do it!
It's a digital one, just little handheld.
I can report that once I had got the deicer separated from the system ground, it read zero and the animals were no longer getting shocked, or else they had been reading Epictetus.

If the tingling or shocks stopped once the deicer was disconnected from the ground wire or ground terminal then it suggests the problem lies with either the supply circuit from the barn panel or the barn supply coming from the house.

I'm also in agreement with E54, your multimeter is likely to mislead you with this type of fault, it's oversensitive to accurately measure stray voltages on the ground wires so you'd be better to get an experienced electrician with the right test equipment to cast a beady eye over it.

 

[Engineer54]

Why not try contacting gnuuser via a PM, he is an American member here. He may not be in the same State as yourself, but will be far more conversant with the latest NFPA 70 (American National Electrical Code)...

 

[GLENNSPARK]

Why not try contacting gnuuser via a PM, he is an American member here. He may not be in the same State as yourself, but will be far more conversant with the latest NFPA 70 (American National Electrical Code)...

their all in the same state....if you ask me...

 

[PEG]

A certain equestrian yard near myself lost 4 fully grown horses in one night to stray currents....you might be better off binning the electric de-icer and just topping up the drinkers with glycol...:dead:

 

[Silly Sausage]

A certain equestrian yard near myself lost 4 fully grown horses in one night to stray currents....

That disproves the "Four legs good, two legs bad" saying then.

 

[flatcat]

izzat circuit legs???

OK. I took the %$^^*@@@X!! multimeter around in the barn and got from +.6v up to +10v different places.
Since I was asked, I'm going to post a photo essay worse than slides of my vacation, or try to.

Essentially, power comes from the pole to the basement, back out through an underground pipe to the barn (100 feet?). As you will see from one photo, there seem to be two hot lines out and a neutral back. Dunno at the moment if it is all grounded by the pipe. Out by the barn are a couple of ground rods, and I somehow always thought the barn panel was grounded to them. However, at the moment, winter conditions, snow, ground frozen, I can't see any such grounding to the rods, and am wondering if it is so at all. Meanwhile, I don't know if there is a ground back to the house (not to mention to the ground itself) by way of the conduit pipe itself. And (here's that theory stuff) I really don't understand neutral wires v. ground wires, especially as they all go to the ground lug inside a service panel.
So I thought one thing worth trying would be running a wire from the barn service panel to the ground rods and see if that knocks out the +v. Try that tomorrow.

BX is the armored stuff. Romex is "non-metallic-sheathed" cable. Romex is probably the first brand name, since become a generic.
The pix will enlarge when clicked upon, right?

Pix:
This is the main breaker
The visual mess is mostly the generator connections.
Though I will accept recommendations on how to make this all Navy-worthy, as we go along.


barn main panel
ancient barn sub-panel

Here's that godawful megacircuit in the house.
Voila! The Crawlspace

Link to deicer: http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail....=34501211923&gclid=CK3p-L_3mrwCFZNj7Aodvw0AaQ


To answer another previous question, got functioning BX and romex wires in this house. My previous one had the same, but remnants of bare-wire-and-ceramic from a previous generation of wiring.
Both, now I think of it, had/have some functioning wire with cloth covering, pre-romex.

BTW, while I got here just out of curiosity about the ground anomaly (which youse have me investigating very seriously by now!), there is much I need to correct/upgrade, so I will be happy to have help across the aether.

 

[Engineer54]

Oh dear God!!!

I hope you have a heavy metal hat you can put on!! lol!!

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Pigtailing the de-icer ground to a local earth rod prevents potential differences between circuit ground and true ground causing discomfort to the livestock. But leaving extension cords with indoor-grade 5-15 plugs and receptacles lying around outdoors in the wet can exterminate them pretty quickly. Please do them a favour and have it installed to code by a licensed electrician, rather than trying to bypass this issue.

As much of your wiring is a few decades old at least, there may be deterioration in the ground connections in multiple locations and possibly incorrect grounding of the neutral which would take proper test equipment to locate. I'm not one to jump on the 'rewire' bandwagon but I can see things that really ought to be upgraded in the process.

Good luck!

 

[KAS1]

It looks a right mess to me (not that I claim to know anything about this system US or anywhere else) however when livestock is concerned a few stray volts here and there can be lethal, so I would seek professional help.