residential home stray voltage

[Coastalguy1]

I have a homeowner who has been experiencing a tingle(shock) when they touch their bathroom faucets. What is the cause for this? or possible cause? Could it be that they have a loose main ground or bonding problem?
thanks
:?Coastalguy1

 

[ptonsparky]

Depending on the location of the home the several things could be happening.

Rural with one home per transformer will make it easier to find. Neutral VD (overloaded, loose connection). Urban would be the same but your neighbors problems become yours. Making sure all piping is bonded together will hide the actual problem if there is one. (They should be anyway).

 

[Gac66610]

what's the age of the home
might check if they have copper water pipes and someone came in and installed a soft water system using pex
may have lost the metal water pipe bond

 

[kwired]

What else are they touching? You need to touch two points of different potential before you will get shocked. The water piping may be the ground or it may be what has elevated above whatever else they are touching. This is first thing you need to figure out what is ground potential and what is elevated potential.

Don't forget if metal drain pipes there could be potential there - no one seems to bother making sure metal drain piping is bonded to electrical system - I suppose partly because today they are usually non metallic.

 

[mull982]

Depending on the location of the home the several things could be happening.

Rural with one home per transformer will make it easier to find. Neutral VD (overloaded, loose connection). Urban would be the same but your neighbors problems become yours. Making sure all piping is bonded together will hide the actual problem if there is one. (They should be anyway).

With the loose neutral connection is this esentally beause there will be a voltage drop between the neutral in the panel and the transformer neutral which is grounded? Therefore is the neutral is bonded to ground in your panel and you touch something that is bonded to the ground then there will be a potential difference between the ground and earth?

 

[ptonsparky]

With the loose neutral connection is this esentally beause there will be a voltage drop between the neutral in the panel and the transformer neutral which is grounded? Therefore is the neutral is bonded to ground in your panel and you touch something that is bonded to the ground then there will be a potential difference between the ground and earth?

Yes, you have the idea. Loose neutral will normally show up in other ways to, such as lights being bright on one circuit and dim on another or as you turn loads off and on you will see this. Under the worst conditions your electronics will let the smoke out. Don't use your hands to test for voltage as look for the problem. It could be lethal under the right conditions.

As kwired has stated you do need to find out what is elevated in voltage. It could be a POCO problem. Put your meter between the offending contacts, floor & faucet, faucet & drain, or whatever. Shut things off in the house and watch what happens. Once everything is off and if you still have voltage it is most likely outside the home.

Once you find the problem, go back and bond everything correctly.