Home power lines all have current

SgtWookie

Joined Jul 17, 2007
22,230
Sorry got those mixed up the 1.9 is going to the gas line,3.1 to water line.
I have no clue why you would have so much current going to/from your gas and water lines unless your power transformer (electric company) has a fault in it, or if you have some appliance(s) that have their neutral and ground wires swapped around.

Both ground rods are copper and about 5to 6 ft long. they are about a inch and a half apart, there so close they could of used one hand sledge to drive both in the ground at the same time.
The short 6' ground rods are used by cable TV techs. Electrical service grounds need to be the longer 8 1/2 foot copper-clad rods.

They are connected with what looks like a solid copper what I would say is a bendable rod, it doesn't look like wire unless it is a very heavy gauge.
AWG 4 wire is 0.2043" in diameter. It's pretty large.

It was a licensed electrician that did the work. Since I have own the house there has been at least a dozen electricians, licensed, working on the problem. Two of them said they could not figure it out and just left, others have done some upgrade work like this last one, another said it was because of the size of the main power lines and replaced them from the meter to the panel.
What gauge wire did they replace the main power lines with?
AWG 2 is just over 1/4". AWG 0 is 0.325".

I am not sure how to turn off just the air handler motor without turning off the whole a/c but I will give it a try.
Just turn off the whole A/C and see if the current in the gas line goes away.

The sub panel bus has all the bare grounds going to 1/2 of the bar and all the neutral lines to the other side, the neutral bus is pushed over to the other side of the panel from the ground bus, the neutral is the one hanging in the air.
Are you getting current readings on the ground wire(s) to/from the sub panel?

I'm not crazy about the neutral bus flopping around. It should be anchored down somewhere, but unless you have a ground rod right there and tied in to the ground bus, the neutral bus should be electrically isolated from the ground bus.

Like I've said before, you should see little to zero current on the ground wires. If you're reading current in the ground wires, then there is a fault somewhere that needs to be corrected.
 

SgtWookie

Joined Jul 17, 2007
22,230
I found one thing, when I checked the current from the sub panel to the main panel it was within .50 amp of each other at each end, so there was no drop from start to finish.
The current in a series circuit will be the same from one end of the circuit to the other. It's sort of like water going through a pipe; you get out of it what you put into it.

But I went back to the ground rods and rechecked them this time one ground was up to 7.0 and the other 5.1 they both were going up and down mostly between the 1.9 and 7.0 after about 5 minutes they both settle at 5.5 and other 5.6. I had a idea and went in and flipped the breaker to the sub panel as that was the only line I know of buried in the ground sure enough the ammeter fell to 1.4 I had someone else flip the breaker while I watched the meter and it went down each time. How can that happen, I did not lose but .50 amps from the reading at the breaker panel in the house to the sub panel 100ft away at the sub panel.
I don't know.
 
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