House hookup

offtohavasu wrote:

nayther wrote:
One thing to be careful of here is if the house wiring is very old the ground might be "floating" I think they call it? This allows a portion of the 120 volts to pass directly to earth without going back on the neutral leg. I've read a lot about shock injuries on RV's because of this but don't know if there's anything to be done about it because they use the RV skin as a ground. If I take a voltmeter from the skin of my RV to earth I read about 65 volts, not enough to hurt you but enough to get your attention. I read about it at RV Doctor, Google it, I'm sure you'll find it. My house was built in the 40's with cloth romex and no ground and from what I've read, and my son the electrician, there's not much I can do about it so I just unplug it whenever I'm working on the chassis or something where I'm grounded.

I think you're referring to an "Open Neutral". The electricity is looking for a return path, via the neutral. So if you have outlets that are daisy chained (as most are) and somewhere along the chain the neutral becomes disconnected, you get an open neutral. Dangerous and can zap the snot out of you.

That might be it, dunno but when I put a DVM from trailer skin to earth I get about 60 volts. I've checked the wiring from garage to trailer and polarity is correct and ground is good (separate ground rod in garage) and it comes off the same panel as my spa, which uses a 60 amp GFCI breaker. I read somewhere that this is a common problem with these old houses. Have not found an electrician yet that can explain/fix it, not even my son who just completed his apprenticeship.