ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area A must read post !!

After all of the excitement died down, with the fire co., we were waiting for PECO to come out. It hit me, when we first arrived at the house, we were not getting voltage. After we turned on the breaker next door, we had 120v. I told my helper to go next door and turn off the circuit that he turned on earlier. That was it! That circuit was traveling from one house to the next, traveling through the siding and capping. When I went next door to check it out, the wiring in the basement was a mess! I removed the circuit from the breaker, and put the service, next door, back together. I told the home owner what we found. I also told him the neighbor needed to get an an electrician, to find out what was causing this. After seeing the wiring in that basement, I didn't want any parts of that!

The next day I received a call from the electrician who was working on the problem (poor guy, his wife works with the HO, a freebie). He was there all day, ripping out wiring and jb's and putting it all back and still couldn't find the problem. He was going back the next day to try and find it. I told him to call me and let me know what he finds. The next day he calls me and tells me that he found it! It was all caused by an old window shaker AC, that was put in a couple of days ago. He unplugged the AC and there was no more voltage.

I posted here a couple of years ago about finding refridgerators on ungrounded systems having anywhere from 60 to 120 volts on the casing of the fridge. Once a ground was established, it solved the problem. Would the A/C causing your problem problem be doing something similar?

It very well might have ... and for the same reason: compressor shorting to the case through the refrigerant. I suspect the "leakage current detector interrupters" that A/C's now come with would have tripped in this situation.

I just read all the posts and it occured to me check the neighbor's circuit entire length that tripped fron the breaker and the load. Power is some how is getting to ground and since it can not get back to the neighbors panel, it found it's way to the next house.

Pretty amazing. I love mind benders like this one. Let's keep them going. It keeps us all up to speed on the wacky things that are going on out there. Thanks for sharing this one Henry.

Sounds like stray voltage in the ground, that is showing up on metal pipes. I have seen it where the stray voltage came from the next door house. I have also seen where there was a pinhole opening in an underground primary service wire. There was 20-45 volts on all of the outdoor water faucets. Maybe you can get neighbors to shut down their service to see if the problem voltage goes away.

Oops,
I didn't read the last post. Glad everything turned out OK.