amps on h2o line

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mama_taz

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gndrod said:
Wow, Are there a lot of type A homes in the neighborhood? Have you checked the incoming waterpipe amps and the electric bill lately?
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I don't know if there is alot because I am not house A. All I know is there is amps on my water pipe when main breaker is off. Even when I replaced my panel. (I only had 2 circuilts wired) And it seems to be making our lights flicker, among other things. when lights flicker, amps increase. I am in a different field now, but was always under the immpresion there should not be any current on the grounding electrode.

when I say clueless they wouldn't know they had a problem till there was an outage. My wife had to to explain to them how lights browning out was not normal. they still did not call POCO. one has tripping breakers, one some of their stuff stopped working correctly.

From what wife has been reading even you guys as electricians have a hard time getting certain places POCO to fix it if there is not any others calling in with issues.

And I think she is about to go bolistic on me and the POCO if one of use does not get it fixed. After all the testing I have done to our service and wiring, I guess the POCO is in her sites.


The flip side of what megawatt mentioned is that an isolated waterpipe electrode system literally acts as a hazard due to the higher potential on the plumbing faucets as iwire pointed out. In the event of a faulty open neutral, I would rather have my neighbors meter spin for the 4 amps for the toaster or 12 amps for the frig line imbalanced returns rather than a dangerous potential existing. At least the dissipation is there.
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That is why I have not istalled one yet, the jury is still out.



JZ
 
cschmid

cschmid

Senior Member
Location
Northern cold country
I guess I am in favor of isolation of the water main..But I am also in favor of making sure your ground is of the lowest ohms to ground as possible. we had problems with this very issue and what I did to resolve the problem was to use screw together 10ft rods and drive my ground 20ft down and then check the Resistance of the rods. Then we isolated the water system in the building..I would think with the ufer ground we should have better grounds to aid in better stabilization of the earthing (grounding electrode). Mike Holt even calls it earthing. just a foot note because I have been chastised for that term..
 
K

Ken 6789

Senior Member
How can there be current on the h20 line buried in earth? I would think the current would dissipate in the earth's moisture
 
stickboy1375

stickboy1375

Senior Member
Location
Litchfield, CT
Ken 6789 said:
How can there be current on the h20 line buried in earth? I would think the current would dissipate in the earth's moisture
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Dissipate where? The current is trying to get back to the source... so if it needs to hitch a ride on the metallic water pipe so be it...
 
N

nakulak

Senior Member
iwire said:
The source will not be your neighbor, the source is the utility transformer.
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that depends. If your neighbor has a poor neutral the current could very well be headed str8 back for that circuit via the water line.
 
brian john

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
In the end it has to return to the source, the earth has NOTHING to do with residential electrical distribution, except as in this case a convenient location for the copper water pipe, oh and the earth is a required for a driven electrode.
 
cschmid

cschmid

Senior Member
Location
Northern cold country
You are correct and as is Brian but it maybe going visit your neighbors until it finds that transformer..that is the nice thing about electricity it is going to find the source..
 
iwire

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
nakulak said:
that depends. If your neighbor has a poor neutral the current could very well be headed str8 back for that circuit via the water line.
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Regardless, the source is the utility transformer.

The problem can be anywhere but the source and where the current 'wants to go' remains the same and the current will take all available paths back to that source in varying degrees.
 
N

nakulak

Senior Member
gndrod said:
I would rather have my neighbors meter spin for the 4 amps for the toaster or 12 amps
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this is one way to look at it, but if you look at the worst case scenarios then its not amusing. Example: lets say you are watering your lawn. lets say that you are next to the sewer cleanout, and your neighbor, who's meter has been spinning 12 of your amps, recently had a main break and now he's got a plastic fitting where it was patched. you accidently become the grounding conductor and now you are spinning the 12 amps. this may not be likely, but the point is that at some time you become the conductor in this dangerous game that, as Mike Holt has pointed out in several of his tapes, is solely the result of the power companies in this country not willing to spend the money for a gounding conductor. The power companies, the utility commisions, and everyone else that is in charge of overseeing the safety of the electric utilities would rather put everyone in the country at risk of this problem, than spending the money to run one extra conductor along the utility lines, because they don't have a problem using the ground as a return path and this stray current which exists all over the country is the result.
 
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gndrod

Senior Member
Location
Ca and Wa
12 amps

12 amps

Nakulak,

I am with you on this also. I just hope the guy replacing the water pipe doesn't get the 12 amps first.
 
brian john

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
The meter of your neighbors house will only measure the current on the energized conductors not the grounded conductor/neutral. This is a grounded conductor issue, therefore the house no one is paying for someone else's power.
 
quogueelectric

quogueelectric

Senior Member
Location
new york
grounding electrode

grounding electrode

There should be no current on the grounding electrode/water line period I have been told repeatedly that current doesnt go to ground it goes back to the source.
 
G

gndrod

Senior Member
Location
Ca and Wa
brian john said:
The meter of your neighbors house will only measure the current on the energized conductors not the grounded conductor/neutral. This is a grounded conductor issue, therefore the house no one is paying for someone else's power.
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Brian, Someone has got to be getting a Tier 1 discount.
 
G

gndrod

Senior Member
Location
Ca and Wa
tiers

tiers

cschmid said:
what is a tier 1 discount?
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Sorry guys, That was my humor that didn't go very well. There is no such discount on the tier penalty scale that is charged in certain states for flagrant energy over-use. A third tier for instance is a boost in rate charge of 400 % when the offending facility goes over the alotted draw limit. This generally happens around 2 in the afternoon on a hot day in L.A. when everyone is running their A/C's full tilt and the poco supplier needs to get more power from a private provider on the grid.
Black Angus restaurant contracts I worked on for programmed control of their store loads would cycle the 10 tons of A/C's to keep the consumption below the third tier penalty at peak hours. Payback for an energy managed system was 18 months from a $10k monthly bill down to about 4k circa 1980 costs.
 
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