Re: about grounding values… An Unbelievable Discovery!!!!!

[Clark Martin]

On Oct 10, 2013, at 11:41 AM, Bob Ober wrote:

> When we first moved into our current house, we had occasional light dims and a clock radio that had a noise that I thought was caused by a nearby radar
> I also had a lot of noise in the system when I started installing the X-10 system.  I eventually installed a whole house filter which made a considerable improvement, but still occasional glitches that occurred too often.
> 
> Then one day, my neighbor asked me if I was having problems with lights getting dimmer or brighter.  I told him to call Pepco, who put at recorded on his house.  Turns out his common connector was completely gone.  The utility replaced his incoming wire and his problems were gone.  Also, my X-10 system stopped have problems as well.
> 
> Our houses were both built in the late sixties.  If you live in an older neighborhood and are having noise problems with your system, it could be coming from any of the neighbors connected to your transformer.  Ask around.  You could save your neighbor from having a house fire.
> 

I had a spell of maybe a week where the refrigerator starting up would make the TV screen jump.  Then one day I was cutting through the water supply line to the house (to install a pressure regulator).  As I cut through there were sparks.  I check with a meter and I was seeing about 30-50V between the cut ends of the pipe.  I jumpered the cut and finished the pipe work.  Then Monday morning I called the power company who sent a crew out and they found a bad neutral connection on the pole.  

The neutral current was being carried by the water pipe and (literally) the earth.

I don't know how long it might have gone like that if I hadn't cut that pipe.