100718-1242 EST
Power Solutions:
What does this mean
Recently I have found 2 customers with 1 to 3 volts ac on the neutral from the utility to earth and drop disconnected from the home.
?
Are all three wires from the utility disconnected from anything at the home? Meaning in particular is the neutral disconnected from the home? This is my assumption from your statement.
Is the voltage to earth measured from the neutral end of the utility drop at the house to the house neutral-EGC-grounding point? If yes, then there is utility or somebody else's current flowing thru the earth.
With the utility neutral disconnected from the home the utility neutral becomes a test lead to the center tap of the transformer. You have not said, but the distribution system is probably a Y with the primary neutral connected to the secondary neutral.
With this disconnected state it would be useful to know what if any current is flowing in the grounding wire at the pole to the pole ground rod.
If you were to measure the voltage from the open end of the utility neutral at the home to actual contact with the ground rod at the pole it should be very close to 0.
Assuming there is current flow from the pole grounding wire to the earth, then if you measure from said wire to spots in the earth close to the ground rod the voltage should drop off as you move away from the ground rod. Be careful. At times this might be on the order of the roughly 10 V you have seen as a peak. Use a high impedance DVM, like the Fluke 27.
.