The electrician Said we can try a grounding rod. But this is all trial and error and every each step is another couple days And there’s no guarantee that this will fix it either.
Bonding issues please help
- Thread starter colleen4o6
- Start date
I agree with cj133 recommendations, something is wrong and a 2nd opinion should be greatly considered.
In your signature, I see you are located in Brick, NJ. I did a quick google search for electricians that have swimming pool/spa services listed on their website:
Pool and Spa Wiring | Wall Township, Manasquan & Brick, NJ | Zephyr Electrical Construction
Need renovation work done to your pool or spa? Call Zephyr Electrical Construction in Wall Township, NJ. We'll take care of the wiring & electrical work!
zephyrelectric.org
Connect Electric, LLC
Connect Electric, LLC is a licensed electrical contractor with over 20 years of experience in Ocean and Monmouth County. Call today for more information.
connectelectricnj.com
You could also call your city building dept to have the electrical inspected.
Thank you I will have someone else come out.I agree with cj133 recommendations, something is wrong and a 2nd opinion should be greatly considered.
In your signature, I see you are located in Brick, NJ. I did a quick google search for electricians that have swimming pool/spa services listed on their website:
Pool and Spa Wiring | Wall Township, Manasquan & Brick, NJ | Zephyr Electrical Construction
Need renovation work done to your pool or spa? Call Zephyr Electrical Construction in Wall Township, NJ. We'll take care of the wiring & electrical work!
Connect Electric, LLC
Connect Electric, LLC is a licensed electrical contractor with over 20 years of experience in Ocean and Monmouth County. Call today for more information.
You could also call your city building dept to have the electrical inspected.
I called the township and they said since the electric passed inspection something must have happened after. (It should have never passed because it was missing its bonding tether) and to call our pool installer.
Our Current electrician has been extremely responsive and hasn’t charged us anything he came out again today but couldnt find anything.
VinnyinNJ
Bronze Supporter
- Jul 20, 2022
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- SWG Type
- Hayward Turbo Cell (T-CELL-5)
Maybe a stupid question but you said you turned off the circuit to the pump, how about the whole house? Once your house is totally dead, if you still feel current then it is not your house. If you don't feel current, turn on the house and turn off the breakers one by one until the problem goes away. Of course it may be multiple circuits.
I turned all the breakers off and it was still happening. I would even say it felt stronger.
VinnyinNJ
Bronze Supporter
- Jul 20, 2022
- 1,054
- Pool Size
- 13500
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Turbo Cell (T-CELL-5)
Did you turn off the main breaker as well? I would think that it doesn't matter since all the power is off but there may be stray voltage from somewhere. I'm not an electrician but if the main breaker was off IMO it means that it has nothing to do with your circuits. The ground is intact when you shut down the house and I will assume the bonding is intact which in turn means it is all grounded and at the same electrical potential. It may have already been said since you said the electrician took the ground off and the problem went away it is indicating that you are completing a circuit when you touch the water.
I haven't read all the responses, but it may be time to get a different electrician. Bonding wire in the ground is new to me but it has a purpose, I wonder if a second bonding wire further away encircling the pool will absorb the energy and render it harmless.
If another house connected to the water main has an issue it could cause similar issues.
Isolating the water line with a section of plastic and driving ground rod (s) to ground the service would solve this issue. At least for you.
Isolating the water line with a section of plastic and driving ground rod (s) to ground the service would solve this issue. At least for you.
hwy17
Well-known member
Does this pool have a buried bonding ring? #8 Copper wire buried 18-24" away from the pool wall, 4-6" below grade.
Even if the pool does not require 4 attachment points the ring is still necessary. It prevents exactly this kind of potential, feet standing on ground around the pool to the pool water.
Even if the pool does not require 4 attachment points the ring is still necessary. It prevents exactly this kind of potential, feet standing on ground around the pool to the pool water.
We have
A bonding ring
A bonded skimmer ring
A bonding tether
A grounding rod off pool pump
We also replaced our house grounding rods
I got I to contact with our mayor and he informed me that jcp&l has an issues with their neutral lines and stray voltage has occured in the town before.
Jcp&l came once and replaced all the fittings to the house in the polls but that did not resolve the issue they said they would send out an engineer within three business days
I will try isolating the water pipe @cj133 I just go onto my crawlspace and wrap it in plastic
A bonding ring
A bonded skimmer ring
A bonding tether
A grounding rod off pool pump
We also replaced our house grounding rods
I got I to contact with our mayor and he informed me that jcp&l has an issues with their neutral lines and stray voltage has occured in the town before.
Jcp&l came once and replaced all the fittings to the house in the polls but that did not resolve the issue they said they would send out an engineer within three business days
I will try isolating the water pipe @cj133 I just go onto my crawlspace and wrap it in plastic
No.......
You would need a plumber to do this. I would advise great caution and to warn anyone that works on it of the concerns and what's going on. People have died from such problems without realizing what they were working on.
You would also need ground rods installed correctly for the panel before hand.
You need a really good experienced electrician before anything else. They will know how to proceed.
Please be careful.
I'm sorry if anybody here works for JCP&L, but in my opinion, they are horrible. Not necessarily their workers, but their physical plant (I have JCP&L service as well).
Electricity goes where it wants to, according to the laws of physics. It also wants to be "even". If there is more "electricity" in one area than in an other, it will want to go from one to an other, through whatever is a convenient conductor.
You are saying that you have a bond ring/halo as well as a water bond, and I assume the two are connected (or else that is an issue). Yet, when standing on the ground and touching the water you get shocked.
This leads me to believe two things.
1) Your soil is not a good conductor. Just because you have a bare copper wire buried in the soil, does not mean it is making good contact and that the soil itself is a uniform potential.
2) There is a source of a ground potential rise somewhere. This could very well be JCP&L's fault. There could be an imbalanced load somewhere and the MGN is carrying an induced voltage to ground.
You did say this is still happening with the power to your house shut down, correct? If so, that means that it is not your pool water that is energized, but that the ground is. If you (or JCP&L) has a sensitive enough meter, they should be able to track the GPR back to the source.
You don't happen to live near a substation, do you?
Since I last post it I have had JCP&L out three times. The third time was electrical engineers and they verify that there is stray voltage at my house but that it’s an allowable level according to BPU. I talked to the mayor and he stated that there’s a three phase electrical system just outside my development . We are currently waiting for the electrical engineer to come back and hook up some kind of meter that’s going to watch our electricity because all the electricians I’ve talk to say it sounds very much like I am having a neutral line issue.
That is what I said, just not as clearly
An MGN (in my original post) is a Multi Grounded Neutral. The neutral line of a power system is bonded to earth (grounded) at regular instances along the cable runs (you can see the "ground" wires running up the pole. The neutral is not supposed to have voltage on it, but if it does, it will bleed to earth and cause the issue you are having.So how does voltage get onto the neutral? Well it can be from an induced voltage, which happens if one leg of a three phase system is imbalanced. That can happen if something using a three phase service installs something that puts a larger load on one of the legs.
I have fought with power companies about this in the past (not JCP&L though). A factory changes their loads and all of a sudden all of the phone lines in the area have a buzz on them (or DID trunks will not pick up). After I had my techs check all the phone cables for bonding, sheath continuity, strapping, etc. could I get the elco to even consider that their was an imbalance that was causing an induced voltage in our telephone cables. Of course that was years ago when copper was king. Fiber does not care about induced voltages
The electrical engineer is stating in his report that we Need to ground the pool to the house to fix the issue. when I said that’s not to code he told me to read nec 680.25 and that clearly says the pool needs to be connected to the house. Section 680.25 talks about feeders not equapotential bonding issues. I’m just hoping whatever meter they put on the house will find some thing and resolve the issue because they are unwilling to help
VinnyinNJ
Bronze Supporter
- Jul 20, 2022
- 1,054
- Pool Size
- 13500
- Surface
- Vinyl
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Turbo Cell (T-CELL-5)
I'm a little confused by what the Engineer is saying. Here's my take on how bonding/grounding works and maybe I'm totally wrong ... The water, pool, other electrical equipment, ground around pool and pump are tied together and goes to the pump bonding lug making them all equipotential around the pool. The bonding lug on the pump should be attached to metal on the pump which in turn is connected to the grounding wire of the pump (or it is directly connected to the grounding wire of the pump which is attached to metal). The pump is connected to the outlet with 3 wires - Hot, Neutral & Ground in a plug and there is a ground going to the main panel - you are theoretically grounding the pump and anything attached to that bonding wire to the house ground. Maybe the wire from the pump to the circuit breaker isn't #8 bare copper wire but it also isn't a single little strand of copper either. 15 or 20 amp wire should be thick enough for low voltage grounding.
When the electrician took the ground off the pump and the sensation stopped it was because the circuit wasn't completed by you touching the water and it going to ground. Is it possible that you have stray voltage floating around - yes. Is the ground to neutral in your house compromised - maybe. Unfortunately the only way to know is testing. If you feel up to it, go to Home Depot and buy a continuity tester: Sperry Continuity Tester CT6101 - The Home Depot It will indicate if ground to neutral is connected and if ground to hot is connected; ground to neutral is OK but ground to hot is not and hot to neutral is not but a light bulb plugged in may show there is a problem. If you decide to check this PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE turn off the main breaker to know with 100% certainty that you are safe to test!
I understand electronics and electrical but not power distribution, hopefully the Engineer is not just saying stuff
My town subcode official said our pipes are poly so he doesnt see this being a solution. Do you feel the same?
Toxophilite
Silver Supporter
You actually have to take grounding and ground rods out of the equation. The best analogy is a bird on a high voltage line. That's its bonding grid, the wire. Everything the bird can touch has the same potential to the same high voltage. The bird in on an equipotential grid. Everything on a pool's equipotetial grid experiences the voltage, creating the same environment the bird sits on. Though problems at the service and equipment can be the source of stray voltage, they can't be the cure.
Toxophilite
Silver Supporter
You have to break it into 2 parts instead of chasing it as one in the same, which is what your engineer seemed to just flippantly suggest.
1. Amount and source of stray voltage, is it excessive-where is it coming from, and for that, you need an electrician to chase it down.
2. Protection from stray voltage, your bonding grid system, is it adequately set up to keep you fully in an equipotential state. Meaning, if there was stray voltage, and it was within allowable limits, you would never know it's there.
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