Electric fence flows through ground back to transformer

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Blucu21

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Connecticut
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Journeyman
I am working on a small farm with electric fencing close to the house. If an electric fence comes in contact with the ground it travels up the group wire, through the appliances and up to the transformer. It causes shocks anytime some one touches an appliance. Fridge, freezer, washer dryer, etc. Is there any product that can be used to absorb the shock and disipate it before it flows through the house, a capacitor of some kind? Thank you for your help
 
Blucu21 said:
I am working on a small farm with electric fencing close to the house. If an electric fence comes in contact with the ground it travels up the group wire, through the appliances and up to the transformer. It causes shocks anytime some one touches an appliance. Fridge, freezer, washer dryer, etc. Is there any product that can be used to absorb the shock and disipate it before it flows through the house, a capacitor of some kind? Thank you for your help
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Don't know why it would flow through appliances. It's trying to get back to the charger and if the house is in-between the charger and where the fence makes contact with the ground I could only imagine that it might travel up the ground rod into the service or if there is any metal plumbing in the ground if bonded it might travel through it to the service. Once it gets to the service I am not sure whether or not it will travel the POCO transformer or to the charger.
 
You don't need a surge protector or a capacitor or anything fancy.

What you need is bonding.

To be getting a shock you need to be touching two things at different voltage. If your customers are getting shocked this means that the appliance and floor or appliance and plumbing or one appliance and another are at different voltages.

If you bond these items together you essentially short out the shock voltage.

So the thing to figure out is if there is required bonding that is broken or missing.

Jon
 
Sounds like the ground side of the charger output circuit was not tied to its own grounding electrode at the charger. If it was tied to the source equipment grounding conductor, that could produce the effects described. Compare the actual installation to the manufacturer's installation instructions.
 
Thank you guys, i cant seem to figure it out. It only happens to appliances in the basement on the concrete floor. I can touch it with my boots that are insulated. Also, it only happens if the fence itself is knocked down on the ground.
 
The plumbing is bonded, the equipment is bonded and grounded properly. There is second ground rod out by the barn, that grounds a panel there, it is not attached to the fence but there is a ground wire coming from the main panel on ser cable. It doesn't seem necessary.
 
Does the concrete floor have rebar, and is that rebar bonded to the grounding electrode system?

What is happening is you have current flowing through the earth, and two _separate_ electrodes in contact with the earth. One is the electrical system ground, which includes the ground rods, the utility neutral, and everything bonded to this.

The other is the concrete slab in contact with the soil.

Think of a grounding electrode as a 'soil antenna', sampling the potential of the soil at the location of that electrode. When you have two separate soil electrodes, you can see a potential difference between them.

There was recently another thread about someone getting shocked by appliances when standing on a concrete slab. https://forums.mikeholt.com/threads/stray-voltage.2568629/

-Jon
 
retirede said:
You still haven’t told us where the “ground” terminal of the fence charger is connected to.
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Yeah, the path of least resistance should be through the ground to the transformer. It isn't in your situation. So, you transformer can't be solidly bonded to the earth, period.
 
Other possibilities…

The charger itself is defective. Most likely somehow it is applying voltage to the housing or grounded on the high voltage side to the housing. Try another fence charger or take it apart looking for damage, frayed wiring, etc.

Or…is the house close to or surrounded by the fence? Current flowing through ground? Current underground does not flow in a straight line.

Unplug and ohm things out.
 
Yes, put in the rods as suggested by the installation manual. Don't use a rod that is already there & close to the fencer. They make insulated DB wire so the rods can be remote. IIRC the system at the farm had 3 rods, 16' from each other with the first about 40' from the barn GE. It charged a couple miles of fence. Comparatively small.

A dairy customer had metal siding on the free stall building being energized at each pulse. Remoting the rods solved the problem.
 
Thank you all, i found it. There was another ground rod, a second one, that was bonding some plumbing, but also return to the panel. It was also attached to the electric fence. Tons of fun, and a scavenger hunt turned it up. I appreciate your help.
 
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