Weird tingling "feeling" ?

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JamesW said:
I think that is is definitely part of the problem.

You want a really good solid neutral.
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Thanks , I think you guys are correct . I am going to call the power company Monday to have this attached properly . It will be better to be hooked up to the whole neutral wire than just a 3rd of it , I would guess ! lol
JohnT said:
The bonding system in the pool should hide a problem like this as it does its job.
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OK, that makes sense . I got a zero voltage reading from the pool to concrete/coping and railings .
I did notice the 1.5v reading from concrete to the bonding wire inside the pump house.

Thanks again for helping figure this out and making some sense of it for me .
The tub is disconnected , and we wont be using it until the "problem" is found / fixed , just to be safe . 1.5 volts is pretty close to the NEV acceptable limits of 1.8v-2v for 240v service .
 
Even if you have a good bonding system you can still get voltage gradients if current is flowing through the bonding grid.

The grid cannot equalize the voltage everywhere when current is flowing.

The only way a grid could really create a true "no-gradient" environment is if the grid was isolated from the rest of the world.
 
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The amount of current traveling through the ground is going to affect the voltage gradients on your property.

There are three primary factors that determine the amount of current traveling through your property.

1) The conductivity of the earth between your grounding electrode and the transformer grounding electrode.

2) The conductivity of the neutral.

3) The amount of current the neutral has to carry.

There’s not too much that you can do about the conductivity of the ground. It is what it is. For example, wet ground is more conductive than dry ground.

If you have a really wet yard, you can put in drainage and water controls systems.

You want the main neutral to be as good as possible.

To control the amount of current that the neutral has to carry, try to balance the loads across the two hot legs.

240 volt loads automatically balance since they use both legs equally.

The key is to balance the 120 volt loads.

If you can get both 120 volt loads perfectly balanced, then the neutral does not need to carry any current.

I would suggest a power monitor like a Sense system so that you can see what is using power and when.

Once you can see what is using power, you can change the 120 volt loads so that they are more evenly balanced.
 
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See this video where Mike has a live wire in a pool and it is carrying 10.35 amps.

The current is getting to the bonding grid and from the bonding grid to the equipment grounding conductor to the house neutral and then back to the transformer.

Some is going through the earth back to the transformer neutral via th transformer grounding electrode.

Because of a concept called "voltage drop" there will always be voltages gradients when there is current flowing regardless of how well something is bonded.


full


Electrical current will always take all possible paths available.

The current will be divided between paths based of the conductivity of each path.

So, as long as the neutral has to carry current, you will always have current traveling through the earth.

If current is traveling through the earth, you will always have some voltage gradients.
 
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Thanks for the detailed explanation James .

As far as our situation ........
1. I think our conductivity of the ground is prob not very good (not sure if thats a good thing or bad) . We live at the top of a mountain (10 mile views on both sides of our house) . . Very dry shale soil (tough to grow garden veggies and such) , no water ever "pools" ......it all runs downhill on every direction . It does downpour sometimes, but the water never stays long . We have a hard time keeping "green grass" , lol .

2. Conductivity of Neutral is obviously a problem in our situation . I know see how important it is .........should have complained about it a year ago when we were "hooked" back up . Figured the electric company "knew" what they were doing . Guess not , or in just a rush to get everybody back power after the storm we had a year ago .

3. Will have to work on getting our 120v legs balanced . We have a FULL 200 amp panel , and likely we are not as balanced as we should be .
I have a great electrician who may help with that ........

1st thing to tackle is #2. Our neutral conductivity is horrendous , lol
 
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There are several tutorials on YouTube about using a multimeter to measure current by making the current go through the multimeter instead of clamping around the wire.

However, I have to stress that you really should not do anything that you are not 100% sure about.

A clamp meter is safer because you are not disconnecting a wire.

www.homedepot.com

Klein Tools AC/DC Digital Clamp Meter, Auto-Ranging 400 Amp CL390 - The Home Depot

Klein Tools CL390 is an automatically ranging true root mean squared (TRMS) digital clamp meter. It measures AC/DC current and NCVT via the clamp, AC/DC voltage, DC microamps, resistance, continuity, frequency, capacitance, and diodes via test leads, and temperature via a thermocouple probe. It...
www.homedepot.com

 
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Yea, dont think I will go into amps quite yet . Will let my electrician go further .

Did notice a few things while checking different voltages with the multimeter .

#3. I do not think my 120v legs are all that balanced . Testing right from the feed , I have one leg at about 118v , and the other is up at around 121v . Could be actual draw on each leg at the time of testing, or maybe they are actually unbalanced . Prob have more drawing off 1 leg then the other ......... unbalanced .

Also , re-did an ac voltage test from the earth ground wire to the concrete floor (not a great conductive) , that is still at 1.5v .
Did an ac voltage test from the earth ground to the metal track of the garage door (about 8" away from the earth ground wire) ..........that was a solid 3v !!!
Going to have that main neutral wire connection fixed asap !
 
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JamesW said:
There are several tutorials on YouTube about using a multimeter to measure current by making the current go through the multimeter instead of clamping around the wire.

However, I have to stress that you really should not do anything that you are not 100% sure about.

A clamp meter is safer because you are not disconnecting a wire.

www.homedepot.com

Klein Tools AC/DC Digital Clamp Meter, Auto-Ranging 400 Amp CL390 - The Home Depot

Klein Tools CL390 is an automatically ranging true root mean squared (TRMS) digital clamp meter. It measures AC/DC current and NCVT via the clamp, AC/DC voltage, DC microamps, resistance, continuity, frequency, capacitance, and diodes via test leads, and temperature via a thermocouple probe. It...
www.homedepot.com

Click to expand...
You can buy a off name brand cramp meter a lot cheaper ( may not hold up over time ) if you just want it just to test. I am like you and know basic stuff but not ready to put a meter online, at least not until July 4th when the fireworks might fit in :)
 
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OK, a little update .
Sent my electrician a picture of the "questionable" main neutral connection at the house ad he agreed that it is not right and to have that repaired by the electric co. before we proceed looking for other stray ground current issues.

Called the electric company and they sent over one of the engineers to have a look, and he instantly put in a work order to have this repaired and hooked up correctly . He apologized and was almost embarrassed that the electric company rigged up this kind of connection . He also agreed that this connection is most likely the culprit for the stray ground current . He said they may opt to install completely new wiring from the pole to the house , just to be safe .

Will report back on the outcome once the electric company has finished the repair/replace on our main neutral wiring .

Thanks all for the help and expertise on this !
 
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Mike1162 said:
I'm following along. Did the electric company give you any idea when they would make the repair?
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He was pushing for this week .
Even though we have power , its still a high priority work order since there is some stray ground current going on .
...............of coarse , tonight , we had a classic "out of nowhere" PA storm burst come through and wipe out power to most of the area . We just got power turned back on after about 4 hours . I am sure this may delay things a little , as they are pretty busy now with all the storm damage .
 
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waterl0gged said:
Ok, here is a weird one for the electricians in the house (maybe its not even an electrical prob !,lol) .

So ....... Newish Strong 400 gallon hot tub . About a year old , located inside (garage hot tub !) , never had any notice of this problem before .........
Hot tub is a salt tub, running the Saltron Mini , and is working great . 240v tub .

Put my hand in the tub today while doing some water testing, and felt a slight tingling feeling on my ONE hand that had a few minor cuts on it . The other hand with no cuts........nothing . To narrow it down , it only happens when I am standing ON the concrete floor around the tub. If I step onto the carpet , or steps of the hot tub , tingling feeling does not happen . To narrow it down even more , I turned off the main breaker for the tub in the main panel AND the hot tub sub panel located close to the tub . NO power to tub AT ALL , and I STILL get that tingling feeling ! WTH ?!?!?

I did not notice it until I put a small dose of Sodium Thiosulfate to bring down the high FC . (long story short , I wasnt paying attention to the Saltron Mini in use , and we hadnt used the tub for weeks with the hot weather , and the CL ran up a bit high . Used some Sodium Thiosulfate to bring down the FC) .

How can I get the feeling of an electrical tingle if the tub is completely turned off of all electrical source ? Tub is "dead" , but if I stand on the concrete floor and stick my hand with the slight cuts on it, I STILL get the feeling of an electrical tingle ! Perhaps its just a reaction from the Sodium Thiosulfate dose and the slight cuts on my hand ? But why then does it only happen when my feet are on the concrete floor ? Even with no power to the tub (and yes the saltron mini is also "out" of the water) .

Any ideas , I am stumped here ????
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Hello, I read your entire thread…
I am experiencing the same “tingling” problem as described by waterl0gged.
Did you ever find the source of the problem?
Any added information is greatly appreciated.. thank you
 
mef60 said:
Hello, I read your entire thread…
I am experiencing the same “tingling” problem as described by waterl0gged.
Did you ever find the source of the problem?
Any added information is greatly appreciated.. thank you
Click to expand...
There are a few threads about electrical issues and some of the electrician folks can chime in.
I know enough to say until you know it’s not electrical stay out or be extremely careful.

First test would be kill all power ( breaker if possible ) to the pool or spa and see if it stops.
 
Hello, thanks for your reply. I shut off power to the tub and also any other local electrical circuits (ie. Exterior lights, outlets) and the tingling remained evident. I even shut down the entire house service which is an underground service about 100 feet away…
And I still sensed that same tingling.
I suspect that it might have to do with my underground service leaking to ground?? I plan on calling my power company next but appreciate if you have any other thoughts or ideas to try. Thanks.
 
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