grounding question

[electricalperson]

people getting blasted off of water pipes. is that caused by people not bonding the copper water pipes to the service? the current thats on the water pipes to cause people getting electrocuted, because its not bonded is it because the pipe is being used as a paralell path for neutral current or the pipe carrying a ground fault to the pipe from some hacked in wiring?

 

[Ben Franklin]

In many cases, the metal water pipe is used to ground the services of several structures. This in return allows normally operating current to flow on the water pipe and in the event of an open grounded neutral service conductor, all the normally operating current of the service may be imposed on the water pipe and go unnoticed until someone comes along and opens the continuity of the water pipe.

That or a circuit has unintentionlly energized the water pipe which has not been effectively bonded to the premise service.

 

[Rewire]

The last one we found was due to a fault in the wiring.The romex was pinched arounf some duct work which had a water line attached for a humidistate which energized all the water pipes with no ground back to the source the fault would not clear.

 

[electricalperson]

thanks ben! im glad you came back from the dead. i see your lightning rods all over old houses not sure if they still work anymore since the lightning conductor that goes to the ground rods is always cut off or installed to the grounding electrode and not to its own set of rods

 

[electricalperson]

so if somebody gets blasted when they are standing on a concrete floor in the shower the current is traveling from the water pipe with the fault current to the concrete thats grounded? best way to troubleshoot is to take a meter and go from the waterpipe to a known grounded object and flip circuits till the voltage goes away?

 

[Rewire]

Thats how we did it we simply turned off breaker until we found the right one then we traced lines.We had one that was caused by the laundry circuit.When they wired they ran the romex in the same hole drilled for the water pipe years of the washing machine vibrations worked a hole in the romex.

 

[electricalperson]

Thats how we did it we simply turned off breaker until we found the right one then we traced lines.We had one that was caused by the laundry circuit.When they wired they ran the romex in the same hole drilled for the water pipe years of the washing machine vibrations worked a hole in the romex.

if you use your amprobe and find current on the copper pipes under a sink for example you probably have a ground fault and ungrounded water pipes or possibly the pipe being used as a neutral? i know if you measure near the water meter you will probably measure a little bit of current if the line is copper to the street

 

[iaov]

Current (electric) can occur if a service neutral opens up some place in the nieborhood. Water pipe becomes path back to transformer. Could be your water pipe and someone elses service!

 

[Rick Christopherson]

Current flowing through the water pipe is not what is going to shock a person. They will get shocked because of a difference in voltage. Regardless what is causing the pipe to be energized, it would also appear that you have a discontinuity in the plumbing too. You might want to track that down.