Hi All -- longtime (relatively) lurker, first-time poster. I've found a few links discussing this topic, but I haven't found (or I missed it) info on how to address this problem. I'll start with a quick dot-dash of my experience, pool and situation:
As this is getting to (or past TLDR territory) let me bullet out what has been done and checked:
Any thoughts and recommendations would be very much appreciated. I'm sorry this is so long. It's funny, my wife and I bought the house DESPITE the pool, not because of it. But we've enjoyed our brief time in it....and it's hot enough now that the pool water temp is 88 degrees....we'd like to use it, but everybody from the pool guy to the electrician is advising against it. I thought managing the water chemistry, cleaning the skimmer and generally pulling snakes and other things out of the pool was going to be my greatest problem.
Thanks for reading, and for any and all thoughts....
Best regards,
Fred
- This my first pool and I'm not an electrician (far from it, I've just recently learned to how to use a multi-meter)
- I purchased this home with an 18,000 gallon in-ground pool (roman style shape) that is surrounded by concrete decking/patio
- I live in a small town in Louisiana which does not require inspections and has only recently adopted/required building codes
- The pool (according to the pool guy I have who put in the liner and installs pools for a living) is not bonded. There appears to be no ground wire from the pool infrastructure (i.e., concrete decking/patio and/or aluminium frame) to the grounding pole that is used to ground the pool filter equipment
- The pool has a vinyl liner (which I recently had replaced) that appears to be attached to an aluminum type frame
- It is a salt water pool, and it contains a single non-LED light fixture, fountain and some kind of steps to enter the pool (plastic/concrete type stairs?). There are no ladders, there is no heater/heating element
- There is an in-ground power outlet right next to the pool decking (coming out of the ground) for powering the Dolphin pool cleaner or music or whatever power tools you'd want to landscape around the pool
- The outlet, pool light and filter are attached to a breaker box (each with it's own breaker) by the pool filtration system and next to the house. Power is coming from the house (wires were run through the exterior wall of the house to the pool filter. This was an add-on to the house and it has it's own breaker box which has a breaker for the aforementioned breaker box that is on the exterior. The internal breaker box in that part of the house is connected to a breaker box in the main part of the house....So 3 breaker boxes that are each connected....this info will become important later
As this is getting to (or past TLDR territory) let me bullet out what has been done and checked:
- Pool guy got an electrician on the phone and he talked him through checking breakers and electrical work. Pool guy brought his teenage son and him kneel on the deck and put his arm in the water with the decking wet and experience the tingling. When the pool breaker was thrown from off to on with the kid doing this, he actually jumped backed from a painful shock.
- Pool guy was stumped, but after testing everything and installing an anode between the pump and the water going to the pool, the problem was still there. He recommended I get an electrician to check everything out and potentially contact my power company about stray voltage.
- I got an electrician and after he checked to make sure the breaker wasn't "leaking voltage", we turned off all 3 breakers (the main house, the add on, the one by the pump/filter system) and were still measuring 3 volts in the pool water and at the aluminum strip of the pool frame. He suggested we try sinking three 10 foot copper rods and run copper wire around the pool (which is really around the decking/patio area) to try and "bond" or at least "catch" the stray voltage.
- I sank the 10 foot copper rods in (with only 6 inches of pole showing), and got 4 gauge (yep, could've used 8 gauge but wanted something REALLY sturdy) and ran the wire in a continuous loop around the pool connecting to the 3 copper rods and connecting the last copper rod to the "known" ground rod over by the pool system. It's 200 feet of wire and as I started to dig the trench (only going in 3 to 4 inches), I thought I should check and see if maybe by some miracle the voltage had magically found my poles and was tossed deeper into the ground. Before sinking the poles, I had used my cheapy Harbor Freight freebie voltmeter/multimeter and got 2 volts in the water. After sinking the rods and wiring them together, but before burying the wire, my measurements showed 6 volts in the pool!
- I relayed the new larger voltage reading to the electrician who came out, inspected my work, took his measurements with the Fluke multimeter and came up with 6 volts in the pool -- this after the breaker was turned off -- with the breaker on, it read 7 volts.
Any thoughts and recommendations would be very much appreciated. I'm sorry this is so long. It's funny, my wife and I bought the house DESPITE the pool, not because of it. But we've enjoyed our brief time in it....and it's hot enough now that the pool water temp is 88 degrees....we'd like to use it, but everybody from the pool guy to the electrician is advising against it. I thought managing the water chemistry, cleaning the skimmer and generally pulling snakes and other things out of the pool was going to be my greatest problem.
Thanks for reading, and for any and all thoughts....
Best regards,
Fred