8 volts from refrigerator door

[Stevenfyeager]

Is it unusual to have 8 volts steady from a refrigerator door to ground ? A new unit with water dispenser. Thank you

 

[Little Bill]

Is it unusual to have 8 volts steady from a refrigerator door to ground ? A new unit with water dispenser. Thank you

Are you getting a shock when touching the door?

 

[JFletcher]

Seems high to me - it's not tripping the GFCI? :huh:

 

[ptonsparky]

What kind of meter are you using?

 

[ptonsparky]

I get mv.

 

[gar]

170718-1959 EDT

I have no idea, but you need to consider this abnormal. And you must find the cause.

I have no idea what you mean by ground. I will provide you with two definitions.

Remote ground. A screwdriver in to the earth at some distant point, possibly 50 to a few hundred feet away, where you think there are no major voltage gradients in the earth. Voltage would be measured with a high impedance meter, 10 megohm input impedance, and with a lower input impedance, possibly 1000 ohms across the meter input. In my backyard and two screwdrivers spaced 12 ft apart I am usually around 0.1 to 0.2 V into 10 megohms, Fluke 27.

Ground or neutral bus bars in main panel. There should be very little voltage difference between these two bars. So either could be used as a ground reference, but you need to know that the difference is small. At the moment my difference reads 0.000,5 V. Fifty feet away at a work bench the neutral to EGC voltage is about 0.06 V. A Fluke 27 has about a 50 kHz bandwidth. I have a noisy LED plugged in, oscillates around 50 kHz.

Your refrigerator should have a 3 wire AC power cord meaning that the enclosure of the refrigerator and its doors should connect to a 3 slot receptacle with a good EGC connection back to the main panel ground bus bar. The EGC of the power cord should connect to all exposed conductive parts of the refrigerator.

Run a wire from the main panel EGC bus bar as a ground reference lead to a high impedance meter. Without the refrigerator plugged in measure the voltage of the EGC socket point relative to the main panel EGC bus bar. This voltage should be near zero. However, 0.1 V would not bother me at this time.

Do a resistance measurement from the refrigerator EGC pin to some point on the door where you measured 8 V. This should be 0.2 ohms or less.

Reconnect the refrigerator to its wall outlet and measure the voltage from the main panel EGC bus with the high impedance meter, your long test lead provides this reference point, to the point on the refrigerator door where you have read 8 V. What is the voltage reading? Do the same with the 1000 ohm shunt. What is that reading? Try the same test to a door hinge.

My neutral to EGC voltage at my wall outlet for the refrigerator is 0.04 V. My EGC at the wall outlet to a refrigerator door hinge is 0.000,2 V. To a metal strip inside the door to hang shelves on the reading is 0.6 V. Clearly this is just a floating piece of metal. So I am seeing capacitively coupled noise. With a 1000 ohm shunt across the meter input the 0.6 V drops to 0.000,4 V. Thus, just low capacitance capacitive coupling.

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[kwired]

What is your ground reference you are measuring to? Is it something you can reach at same time you are touching the refrigerator or is it something remote like a probe in the middle of the yard?

Do you only have voltage to the refrigerator door or is it to all exposed metal on the unit?

Is there the EGC of the circuit the refrigerator is plugged into intact all the way to the system bonding jumper?

 

[oldsparky52]

Is it unusual to have 8 volts steady from a refrigerator door to ground ? A new unit with water dispenser. Thank you

Yes.

 

[kwired]

Yes.

But more details are necessary to determine if the cause of the problem is actually within the refrigerator.