Shocking question!

[journeyman Mick]

About a week ago I got an electric shock in the shower :eek: . As I was turning the tap off I touched the metal button that holds the tap handle on. I got a boot that caused my arm to retract violently, so much so that the muscles are still a bit tender now. I carefully turned the tap off, only using the plastic part of the handle. I went out and checked the earth bond on the copper piping next to the HWS. I checked continuity between the copper pipes and the earth wire, the earth socket on an adjacent power point and the copper coated steel earth stake hammered into the ground outside. They were all only around the 3ohm mark.

I checked this because years ago I lived in an old farm house and we would get tingles from the shower taps. It turned out that the house system was earthed to the plumbing pipework, but unfortunately the gal pipes in the ground had long since rusted out and been replaced with PVC - so no earth. We fitted a new earth, no more tingles.

On the day when I got this shock there was a thunderstorm brewing, lots of thunder in the distance but no close lightening strikes. I'm wondering if this shock was caused by static build up from the thunderstorm, given that the house earthing seems to be okay. There's RCDs fitted to all the power circuits, but not the lighting or HWS circuits. Ideas anyone?

Mick

[gnu52]

:D Hello Mick,
This may not be relevant to your situation but I will make the comment in case it helps.
I have heard of similar problems when the earth stake is in extremely dry soil, even at depth, such as we currently have here, the solution being to wet the area to help improve contact. I guess this applies most to cracking reactive soils (clays).
It will be interesting to see what others come up with. Best of luck, Bill.

[Daddles]

:D Hello Mick,
This may not be relevant to your situation but I will make the comment in case it helps.
I have heard of similar problems when the earth stake is in extremely dry soil, even at depth, such as we currently have here, the solution being to wet the area to help improve contact. I guess this applies most to cracking reactive soils (clays).
It will be interesting to see what others come up with. Best of luck, Bill.

So Bill, you're suggesting he go have a leak on the earth pipe? :eek:

I'd be getting it checked. You can get shocks from electrical storms (as an aeromodeller I know that well enough), but I'd be checking the house before jumping to those confusions. A jolt large enough to leave your arm numb is too big to be comfortable with - what if it had hit a child?

Richard

[LineLefty]

Mick with the amount of investigation you've done, do you honestly expect anyone to give you more information? MAyhap it's time to call a sparky.

I had a similar experience in our siter in laws house. No one believed me when I said I was seeing flashed when my head touched the shower head. (only I was tall enough). Finally I realised that I was being earthed..................

[journeyman Mick]

Adam,
trouble is most sparkies seem not to know about this sort of stuff. I had a client whao was complaining about getting shocks when washing up, had asked all the local sparkies, no solutions. I ran an earth wire from the copper pipes at the sink out to a new earth stake - no more tingles.

Bill,
The soil is definitely not dry, it's the wet season here and we measure our annual rainfall in metres.

Richard,
the arm isn't numb from the shock, the muscles are a bit tender from the muscular contraction.

I was sort of hoping (still am) that the electrical gurus (engineers etc) that gave answers in the thread about running 110V, 60HZ tools over here would be able to help. I suspect that it was caused by the lightening activity because the earth connections are all sound and the fact that there's never beena tingle before (or since).

Mick

[PuppyPaw]

I have the same problem in my house when its storming/about to storm.
the first time it scared the crap out of me and I didn't end up with just a sore arm but **** too when I slipped (pulled the arm away, pushed into the wall which made me need to adjust my feet which landed safely on the conditioner that had been nocked over when my arm hit the wall of the shower with is a glass panel)

didn't happen again for over 6week or there abouts untill another storm.. Unfortunatly I am sometimes very slow on the uptake.. wasn't untill the third storm that I finally put two and two togther and relized that conditioner on the floor was bad when one is being shocked by taps

[Zed]

ok... qld has areas that do not have good earth conductivity. I dont know why perhaps this may alos explain your higher than average storage of emf converted to static electricity ..... I remember in the darling downs about 20 odd years ago when the first commander telephone systems came out there was a higher than average failure rate and they tracked it down to bad earth (literally).

I would firstly recommend that you remove the earth for your power from your plumbing and install a dedicated earth system. better to be safe than sorry old mate.

I dont know how serious your prob is but here is an extreme solution ;

install more earth rods (ie one on each cardinal point of your house) and really hammer the suckers in nice and deep - maybe even finding some iron rich earth to hammer it onto - try to keep the area wet (you may have to put some mulch on it to stop it drying up all the time, plant some shrubs that will help the water retention) , I would also lay some copper ribbon into your back yard in a radial pattern (like a river being fed by its tributaries in reverse where the river is the single point attached to the earth rod) making sure you use stainless steel nuts and bolts to do all the hook ups. thas what we used to do on all the telco and radio towers and it seemed to work. the copper ribbon need not be a thick gauge as the skin effect of high voltages will make the current travel near the surface of the copper anyway - this will make it cheaper to buy. you can do all this yourself too - you only have to bury the ribbon about 30cm to make it effective. dont use gal nuts and bolts or it will react with the copper.

You can get good earthing equipment from a place called "RF Industries" they supply good earthing stuff to the radio and telco industries, im pretty sure they would still have a sales office in brissy - (I used to be a comms rigger with them so I know thier stuff is good ) failing them an electrical supplier will have earthing rods and copper ribbon. make sure the earth stake is a stainless core with a copper sheath about 1.2m min length and plunge it in all the way baby (if you want you can put in an inspection pit over the rod so you can measure your ohmage. by the way the resistance will change accodring to the weather - hot dry weather will make your earth worse and increase the resistance

*** not a paid advertisement ;) ****

[bitingmidge]

Mick...check out the earthing anyway.

I think Zeddie's pretty close to the mark though (but I'm not the black dot between an electricians buttocks).

There are areas of high ground discharge, used to live near one, but it was located over Moreton Bay, (near St Helena Island for those interested) and apparently receives one of the highest incidences of lightning "strike" in the state.

Twice I have been sailing through the area at night with thunder storms brewing, but a long way off, and had the same thing happen as your shower incident. St Elmo's fire to...a wondrous cobweb of light ripping up my arm to the shoulder....while the crew were standing forward on the trampoline oohing and ahhhing at the pretty lights. Took a few days for the arm to stop aching.

An electrical engineer of my acquaintance explained that lightning in fact travels upwards... so the high ground discharge areas are letting mini shocks go (in layman's terms).

If the other electrical stuff draws a blank, I'd be thinking about using a few lengths of plastic in the water lines to try to provide some insulation for the future. (Have done my whole house like that just in case).

P (lightning does strike twice on the same arm - be careful!!) :eek:

[Barry_White]

Mick

If I was you I would be contacting the local electical authority. These are the people that pull the sparkies up on any faults and will find things that a sparkie wont find.

[AlexS]

FWIW, RF Industries also sell some stuff (can't remember what it's called) that permeates the earth around earthing rods to improve the conductivity.

[Cliff Rogers]

.....(can't remember what it's called) that permeates the earth around earthing rods to improve the conductivity.....
stale beer????

[craigb]

located over Moreton Bay, (near St Helena Island for those interested)

Umm Midge, St Helena is in the middle of the Atlantic.
It's where thay banged up Napoleon. :eek:

Sorry, sorry, couldn't resist :o

Last year when I had the "shed" (which is actually under the house) wired, the sparky couldn't figure out why the new safety cutout kept tripping.

It turned out that the house wasn't actually earthed, even thought I could eyeball the earth wire connected to the cold water inlet :eek: :eek:

[bitingmidge]

stale beer????
It has to be strained first.

Preferably through the kidneys.

P

[Cliff Rogers]

Seriously though.... electricity is weird & lightning is even weirderer.

For something to bite you, you have to be at a different electrical potential to the thing that bites IE, you can touch one side of live 240 & it won't hurt one bit IF & ONLY IF you are not connected to anything else that completes the circuit back to the other side of the 240 generator. That connection can be via earth (taps, metal plumbing, bare feet on wet floor etc...) or through a faulty appliance or through a bare connection or directly to the black/blue wire if you are dumb/careless/unlucky enough to touch it.

SO.... if you are standing in a shower/wet bath tub/whatever & the tap bites you when you touch it, you must be at a different potential to the tap.
For that to happen, the wet floor or other plumbing you are in contact with must be at a different potential to the tap. This is a bit unusual 'cos if the HWS had an internal fault, it would be leaking away to earth via the copper pipes & the tap that bit you....so....

I reckon we go with the lightning theory on this one.

I've seen what happened to a bathtub in a lightning storm so I stay away from the bathroom during thunderstorms now.

In my Grandparents' house in the very early 60's long before they had 240V, they had a chip heater for making hotwater in their bathroom. It sat on a tiled floor at the end of the bath & had a metal chimney that went up through the roof.
During a thunderstorm there was a very close bolt of lightning & it was close enough to induce enough 'electrical' potential for a 'spark' (bolt) to jump from the brass tap on the chipheater to the enamal tub & it left a black mark all the way along the tub to the brass plug hole.

[vsquizz]

Mick, check that the telephone lighting arrestor earths are not common with the plumbing earth. If so just run em separate.

Also do a few voltage checks off the plumbing to be sure.

Cheers

[journeyman Mick]

Squizzy,
where are the phone lightning arrestors and what do they look like?

Zed,
The house does have a dedicated earth rod, a 2M long SS core, copper jacket jobbie. The copper piping is bonded to earth, which I believe is usually done to prevent any problems should the HWS short out.

Cliff,
will having more earth rods solve this, or is it simply a matter of not showering during lightning activity (I suspect the latter).

I doubt that I have a dodgy earth, we're on black sandy river loam that absorbs rain water very well and, like I said it's the wet season just now. It hasn't rained for about a week but the grounds still moist and it was pretty wet at the time of the incident. Is there any way of checking how good the earth is? From earth rod to the dirt I mean. :confused:

Mick

[vsquizz]

Mick, wherever the phone lines come into the house there should be a little grey box (called a Madison Box) or similar. Inside there "should" be a thingy what looks like a big fuse (old) or a thingy what looks like well a ..an insulated plastic rectangular thing with two wires coming out (newer). Sometimes its just a small round PVC terminal box with "T" (for terrible) on the screwed cover. A multi core heavy green earth wire should come out of the fuse thingy and go to ground. If the original installer was lazy they sometimes just run the earth to a nearby copper pipe relying on the rest of the earth system.If your still lost I'll post some piccy's.

Cheers

[Cliff Rogers]

...Cliff,
will having more earth rods solve this, or is it simply a matter of not showering during lightning activity (I suspect the latter)....
Nuh, lightning just lurves a good earth.... Stay out of the shower unless you wear a plastic raincoat, rubber gloves, gumboots & DEFINATELY NOT a foil hat. :D

[journeyman Mick]

Cliff,
thanks, maybe I shouldn't have been wearing the foil elbow length gloves :eek: , but they look so fetching :D

Squizzy,
thanks, for some reason we've got two of these, one out on the soffit sheeting (under the eaves) and one just a metre from there in the ceiling cavity. I'll check them out, but I don't recall seeing any wires other than telephone cabling coming out,

Mick

[vsquizz]

Squizzy,
thanks, for some reason we've got two of these, one out on the soffit sheeting (under the eaves) and one just a metre from there in the ceiling cavity. I'll check them out, but I don't recall seeing any wires other than telephone cabling coming out,

Mick
Mick, wouldn't be the first place I've seen without lightning arrestors but they are probably in the system somewhere. They obviously have to be grounded to work. The one in the soffit is my best guess. Just unscrew the cover and have a gekko, don't lose the little O-ring:D The earth wire will generally run inside the cavity, sheathing, weatherboards whatever and appear somewhere at the foundations if it hasn't been hotwired to the rest of the house earth. Even if this is not the problem its worth having done right. A lightning strike on the phone lines, or house is bad enough without parrallelling to other systems.

[simon c]

Hi Mick

I did a bit of research and came up with some interesting websites:

1. Websites atht say never shower in an electrical storm:
http://www.ses.vic.gov.au/CA256AEA002F0EC7/OrigDoc/~62E6ECFFC32C4D4CCA256AF4002AE23D?OpenDocument&1=10-Listing~&2=-Safety+tips~&3=0-Lightning+Action+Guide~

http://www.sessa.asn.au/community_guides/lightning.html

2. Other references that say don't even shower if you have plastic pipes in a storm as some current can travel through the water.

But I believe most of these imply that there has been a direct strike, rather than electrical discharge.

I then found a document that may describe your problem - although it is US based and may not apply here due to differences in how houses are wired.
http://www.mikeholt.com/documents/strayvoltage/word/ElectricalShockShower1-25-99-1-27-00Rev1.doc

Hope this helps

[silentC]

Are you sure you're not suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome? A mate of mine had it from playing guitar. He reached out one day to grab the door handle and it felt like an electric shock went up his arm. OK, it was just a thought :)

[TassieKiwi]

Heya Mick

I think that before you go to any expense, get the performance of your earth checked. I'm a civil engineer and not schooled on the sparky side of things, but I did once have to check the quality of the earth of some building piles - for the lightning earth on a highrise. The technician had a windy-up gismo (like the old telephones) that created a charge and measured the resistance - quick and simple. I reckon if you talk to your electricity supplier, or a local Civil or electrical consultancy, someone would be able to do this.
Or, could be 'wet season drinking arm carpaltunnelitis', in which case, make a plastic foily and change arms.http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Wood Borer]

Mick,

So far the discussion (apart from Silent's idea) has been either lightning or 240V based. Perhaps you didn't have time to notice, but did it feel like AC or DC? AC will give a tingling belt but DC gives a whack from my experiences.

Obviously if we can work out if it was AC or DC we can determine if it was due to static or something with your power.

If you got a belt then obviously there was a potential difference between the tap and whatever else you were touching. What was the other thing? (I am being serious here) was it the shower frame? Another Tap? ?????

If it was a metal shower frame then perhaps that it isn't earthed or it is pinched against a cable etc.

[simon c]

If you got a belt then obviously there was a potential difference between the tap and whatever else you were touching. What was the other thing? (I am being serious here) was it the shower frame? Another Tap? ?????


If the shower base is well wetted and on a concrete slab or a conductive frame then just touching a source would discharge through to the ground.

[Barry_White]

The good thing about living in the bush and having your own transformer pole the earth from the house runs back to the pole and is connected to the Country Energy earth.

Their earth runs three feet down into the ground and then runs 25 to 30 feet either way from the pole.

[Iain]

Modern TV's can give you a fair old belt too if you touch the antenna, I think its about 60VDC, live chassis are common and unpleasant to the touch, if there is an earth fault it is a possibility that it could come from here, although not knowing your layout not sure how it would arrive.
On mine the earth managed to get in contact with the guttering which gave me a fair old nudge when I went up to align the antenna.
Just another option to consider.

[AlexS]

Just on the lightning topic - not Mick's problem specifically - as Cliff says, it's strange stuff. Many of the people & animals killed have not been hit but are killed by the potential difference between the points where their feet touch the ground - presumably only a matter of a few inches for humans. On the other hand, many people hit by lightning are relatively unharmed. Some years ago, a young lady was sitting communing with nature during an electrical storm on Narrowneck in the Blue Mtns. She sustained some minor burns on her skin, but the backside was blown out of her jeans. Presumably, that was where the lightning went to earth, although if I was hit by lightning, I might blow the asre out of my jeans too.

[Daddles]

It's interesting to note that despite all these serious replies, we probably haven't been anymore useful than if we'd turned this into a pancake thread - but by crikey it's been informative (and fun) reading about it. I guess it just goes to show the moral strength of the aussie male :D

Richard

[Eastie]

The good thing about living in the bush and having your own transformer pole the earth from the house runs back to the pole and is connected to the Country Energy earth.
Their earth runs three feet down into the ground and then runs 25 to 30 feet either way from the pole.

Mick - weren't using the hair dryer by any chance ? As they say common sense isn't very common ...:D

All this has given me a couple of ideas. The first involves an electric fence unit and my neighbours copper water supply pipe - thanks everyone for contributing to such a wonderful idea. The second relates to looking into the pupose of the HV overhead supply cable that, for reasons unknow, runs underground from somewhere behind my property connecting to a small speaker type cable underneath the house? I first managed to find it with a crow bar digging a hole for the back fence - I thought it was a tree root up until it took half a dozen nudges from the crow-bar to break through. Are such huge earth wires normal?

[Peter R]

Heya Mick

I think that before you go to any expense, get the performance of your earth checked. I'm a civil engineer and not schooled on the sparky side of things, but I did once have to check the quality of the earth of some building piles - for the lightning earth on a highrise. The technician had a windy-up gismo (like the old telephones) that created a charge and measured the resistance - quick and simple. I reckon if you talk to your electricity supplier, or a local Civil or electrical consultancy, someone would be able to do this.
Or, could be 'wet season drinking arm carpaltunnelitis', in which case, make a plastic foily and change arms.http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/images/icons/icon10.gif
Just dropped in to your post Mick, aint' ya glad???

The earthing would depend if you have Multiple Earth Neutral or Direct Earthing System in your area.

With Direct Earthing Systems earth Leakage Circuit Breakers are suppose to trip on an earth leakage, that is any current going to earth, where as the protection of MEN is just that, It is supposed to have many earth connections to disapate current in the neutral or earth system.

An acceptable, and usual earth resistance whould be around 5 to 10 OHMS. In most areas of MEN 10 ohms is accepted on the high voltage side of substations and 5 oms on the low voltage side. That is not to say that it is actually that as things change.

Sand is not a good earth, it is too porus, dense clay is the better earth. Some epsom salt around your earth rod will assist in the earth binding.

However, In the nonosecond that it takes lightning of millions of millions of volts and little current to strike, again supposedly the speed of light, you are cooked no matter what system your earthing system is.

Lightning is like firing a 17mm projectile out of a 357 magnum cartridge only more so.

When I was doing my electrical course way back in 62, I saw photos of cadavas that had been struck by lightning, why they showed us those photos I will never know, because if your number is up no memory of a photo will be of any use to you.

One photo showed a bloke, all his clothes burnt off and big holes in his body where his watch was, where he had change in his fob pocket and now this is the painful bit, where his ring used to be.

Another photo showed two dead people who were sitting in a line from one power point to another power point. The lightning came out of one power point crossed the room, did a hit on the oldies and made its escape via the other power point.

So what am I trying to say, I hear you ask....Well apart from not holding a metal rod in the air during storms, or standing under a tree, or sitting on the roof, if lightning is out to get you it will. But the good bit is that more than 60% of people hit by lightning survive, they are brain dead but....No just joking.

Peter R.

[scooter]

Hang on, I think Eastie and WB are on to something.....

Er, Mick, did you happen to have an (ahem) electrical appliance in the shower with you?? :o :eek:

What about a Juicy Lucy inflatable friend?

These things can make your knees tremble.....er, so I've heard...

C'mon mate, spill the beans, you've kept us idiots in suspense long enough !


Cheers..............Sean, who showers to wash ;)

[journeyman Mick]

Thanks for all the help everyone! :)
In no particular order:
No, not using a hairdryer, because:
a)my hair's really short and in this heat dries in about 5 minutes anyway
b)common sense may not be very common, but I've got a smattering of it. :D
c) My name's Billy Hunt, not Silly C*** :eek: :D

I was standing in a showerbase awash with water, pretty good earth I would've thought.

That wind up gizmo is an old fashioned Meggameter (sp) You've just reminded me! I had a mate in Sydney years ago who was an apprentice sparky. There was a bloke on the jobsite who every morning without fail, would clock on and then go and read the paper on the dunny for half an hour or so. My mate and his boss got in early one morning and pulled the (wooden) seat off the dunny. They drove a series of fine pins through the seat from underneath thill they were just through the top. Looped a copper wire around to join them all up and ran a wire out the back of the dunny. Waited for the bloke to get in, sit down and get comfortable, waited about 5 minutes, wound the megger right up and pressed the plunger. Apparently the bloke hit the roof screaming and came out with his pants around his ankles :eek: :D :eek: :D

I was going to say that I can't tell the difference between AC and DC when it bites (I try to avoid being bitten, usually successful), but I think I can. I got a really good whack from an electric fence unit which I assume is DC. Was using a metal knapsack sprayer and had accidentally turned it on rather than off. Touched it with the wand and next thing I know it's like a huge belt that threw me back a few metres to land on my back on the (now badly dented) knapsack. The other big belt I've had was when I pulled a porcelain fuse and discovered that some idiot had left a bit of wire poking out the top. I reckon they heard me bellowing in the next suburb. :eek: Not so much tingling as shaking. But not a straight whack like the fence unit.

I don't think I have Carpal tunnel syndrome, but how do you know? I do have tenosynovitis in both my forearms, and buggered tendons in my right shoulder and just recently trigger finger in my right hand, so more things breaking down/wearing out is entirely possible. :(

I don't own any "adult toys" besides all the gear in the shed. Got half an acre to mow, sheds to build, all the gear in the shed, stacks of timber (literally), an ex ballerina for a wife. :) , and more projects than you can poke a stick at to keep me busy.

I'm off now to check out those links (thanks Simon) and will probably avoid showering during thunderstorms.

Thanks all,
Mick

[vsquizz]

That wind up gizmo is an old fashioned Meggameter Mick, living in a messdeck with 35 engineers and a dozen of the high power guys you see some funny things. None of the sparkys ever had a real reputation for jumping out of the fart sack at the drop of the hat. One of them was a real shocker, always took about 4 shakes to get him up and always late. One morning two of the off going watchkeepers arrived down the messdeck with the big megger. Connected the leads to the guys toes and gave it a good crank.

He became quiet adept at getting on watch on time after that.:D

BTW, did you find your lightning arrestors fo4r the phone?.

Cheers

[journeyman Mick]

Squizzy,
I haven't climbed up in the ceiling to look yet, it's been too hot! I don't even feel like dragging the ladder up from the shed in this heat, I can't imagine that I used to build houses in this type of heat! (insert profusely sweating smilie)

Mick

[Buddabang]

Sounds like a bad or broken neutral. you shouldnt be getting any volts on your earthimg system. I'd get the distribution company to send out a fault crew.
If it is a neutral problem, your earth acts as a return path for the current so any metal fittings that are hooked up to the earth will have a difference in potential.
The more items you have switched on in the house, the more fault current on the earth system, the bigger the shock.

You shouldnt have more than one ohm on your neutral.

[knucklehead]

Mick, I have had more than my far share of these type of shocks from working in peoples houses. This is normally what I suggest to find the problem.
1. The power company will treat the loss of an earth seriously. If you call them and say the right words (i.e. I think the earth is not connected) they will come out and check. They will only check to the power box but thats a start. (did this on one job cause the earth rod was HOT, ended up this guys earth stake was the only working one for about 8 houses)
2. In most metro areas the neutral and earth are bonded. If this is the way it is your area its worth checking.
3. Could be a single appliance leaking. Most of the time its the defrost heater in the fridge (a classic sign of this is a frdge that sweats or has rusty external surface). Get each device "mega" tested. This checks for insulation between conductors.
4. RCDs and ELCBs are different. RCD will trip if the curent going to and comming from a device is not balanced. ELCBs will trip when they see current on the earth. Also they are often left off circuits that are problematic, easier than fixing the issue. Sad but true...

Yet another unqualified waffle to add to the listhttp://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/images/icons/icon12.gif

[cookyboy]

greetings Mick.

WE had same problem, ccalled power co. it turned out it was the old wires where the power line meets the house .they came out immediatly ,did all the things you did ,then they pointed out to me the swolen insulation between junction box and power line. They were very good call them . its thier problem . no charges $ were made
Gordo.

[journeyman Mick]

Buddabang, Knucklehead and Gordo,
haven't had any problems since this single occurence. Had the connections and earth checked, I reckon it was the lightning strike.

Mick

[Groggy]

Buddabang, Knucklehead and Gordo,
haven't had any problems since this single occurence. Had the connections and earth checked, I reckon it was the lightning strike.

MickMick, nothing to do with you original topic, but I'll add something I heard today. An electrician was working on a house and turned off the power. As he worked he got a heck of a kick from the powerpoint he was working on. Apparently, TV's that are turned off with a remote are not really "off", and can contain quite a charge. He is now careful to turn off the TVs fully, before turning off the power.

[journeyman Mick]

Groggy,
years ago I got a boot from a tape deck, I touched the pins of the power lead which had just been unplugged. I deduced that I must have got a boot from a power supply capacitor, probably what happened to the sparky. On a similar note, it's possible apparently to get a boot from a tv aerial, something to do with stray high voltages in the TV. Apparently on a large multi tv/single aerial set up like on an apartment block, this can be lethal.

Mick

[Ashore]

Buddabang, Knucklehead and Gordo,
haven't had any problems since this single occurence. Had the connections and earth checked, I reckon it was the lightning strike.

MickIf you have had neutral connection at the point of connection to your house and the earth connection checked then all is well Just watch out for lightning.
In Newcastle N.S.W. You no longer need to have a dedicated earth the local authority allows connection to a copper water pipe they seem to think this is enough



The trouble with life is there's no background music.

[journeyman Mick]

I know it's a pretty old thread, but I thought I'd update it. The power company is moving the supply lines as currently there's a string of poles running down the middle of people's back yards and they can no longer access some of the poles. Some of these poles have been badly termite attacked. A fortnight ago contractors came out and knocked down a number of trees out on the roadside. Bloodwoods and red stringys. Guess who managed to snaffle all the logs?:D

Yesterday there was an air operated percussive track drill busy for about ten hours boring holes across the road. Wanderred over there late in the afternoon to find out what was happening. The bloke was installing earth cables for the new pole mounted transformer which is coming next week. Turns out this whole area has really poor earth and the bloke used up all the materials that he had onboard to install about a dozen or more earths and it was barely within specs. He reckons that my system's earth will be better as a result (but I'm still going to stay out of the shower during thunder storms).

Mick

[Pat]

Mick, what happened to the poles that were not termite ridden? Did you manage to "obtain" them too?:)

[journeyman Mick]

Mick, what happened to the poles that were not termite ridden? Did you manage to "obtain" them too?:)


Pat,
not really interested in building anything with ex-power poles or milling them up. The power company is going to give one of the better second hand poles to our fire brigade. They'll be sticking it in the ground next to our shed so we can mount our radio aerials on it.:D

Mick

[AlexS]

Hope your problem is solved Mick.
During our last big thunderstorm, the vent pipe from the toilet next door was hit. It arced across to the water pipe to the cistern, flooding the dunny, took out half the power circuits in their house and took out our answering machine.

[RETIRED]

Waiting for it........:C

[Gra]

Waiting for it........:C

Come on , it was just too easy for us, we decided to leave for you:D :D :q :q

[AlexS]

Go on, I dare ya.