Stray Voltage?
My RV has a stray voltage problem, and I'm wondering if anyone has any good ideas on how to find or fix the problem. My daughter complained to my wife that she thought she was getting shocked when ...
Forum Discussion
OK, got back and doing some checking, unfortunately the office is closed so won't get help there.
Using my cheap multi-meter, just by touching bare metal with the red tip and shoving the black tip into the semi-dry dirt, I have found that I have at least 5 volts showing coming out of the RV and going through the meter to ground, EVEN WITH THE RV UNPLUGGED. I do have jacks down but they are on a concrete pad.
I have 8 volts showing when it's plugged in but doesn't matter if it's turned on or not. My voltage is less than yesterday but it hasn't rained today so my dirt probably has more resistance.
I checked the plug just like in your video and everything shows just like you said it should.
Put the red lead into the ground point in the pedestal and black into the dirt and still have 8v, also from just the metal of the pedestal, suggesting the the ground is connected to the box metal, but cannot visually see how well.
Red lead in the positive side of receptacle and black into the dirt got me 100v while doing it from positive side to neg or ground side of receptacle got me 120 (chalking that up to dirt not being a great conductor.
I did notice that there are power lines or telephone lines about 75 feet from me. not sure if that is enough like another poster suggested to look for. I'm also on a Navy base that has several radar's and don't know if that could contribute.
I also read my power cord from the ground prong back to the same bare metal on the RV that I have been using for my tests and only had about .5ohm, so I think that is good. Also checked power cord with Ohm side from the ground prong to the other 3 prongs on the plug and got 0 ohms, but this might not be an accurate test as I have a built in surge protector/transfer switch that I can here click on but only when I'm plugged in.
I did use my adapters down to the 20A GFCI on the pedestal and it did not trip that and yes I checked it with the test/reset button first.
I did try to see if a dog tie out stake screwed into the ground and connected to the rv with jumper cables would do anything and it did not, just like the above post said it probably wouldn't, although this only went down about 6 inches before it hit rocks and was also still in loose dryish dirt, and I know those copper ground stakes are very long. Went to other pedestals and all seem to have this voltage on the outside, and I can't imagine the campground putting in those stakes at every pedestal, if it was induced voltage. The power lines I see are not the huge ones on towers 100 feet in the air, just smaller ones on wooden telephone type poles, so not even sure if they are for power.
Still confused as to why I already have voltage in the RV trying to get to ground even with it unplugged, other than the posibility of induced voltage from the power lines, but then also concerned as to why that voltage seems to go up by 3V just because I plugged it in even with the breaker turned off although I guess that if there is that 8V just on the metal of the pedestal that would make sense as the breaker only shuts off the hot side and the ground is always connected.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGG!!!!!
Using my cheap multi-meter, just by touching bare metal with the red tip and shoving the black tip into the semi-dry dirt, I have found that I have at least 5 volts showing coming out of the RV and going through the meter to ground, EVEN WITH THE RV UNPLUGGED. I do have jacks down but they are on a concrete pad.
I have 8 volts showing when it's plugged in but doesn't matter if it's turned on or not. My voltage is less than yesterday but it hasn't rained today so my dirt probably has more resistance.
I checked the plug just like in your video and everything shows just like you said it should.
Put the red lead into the ground point in the pedestal and black into the dirt and still have 8v, also from just the metal of the pedestal, suggesting the the ground is connected to the box metal, but cannot visually see how well.
Red lead in the positive side of receptacle and black into the dirt got me 100v while doing it from positive side to neg or ground side of receptacle got me 120 (chalking that up to dirt not being a great conductor.
I did notice that there are power lines or telephone lines about 75 feet from me. not sure if that is enough like another poster suggested to look for. I'm also on a Navy base that has several radar's and don't know if that could contribute.
I also read my power cord from the ground prong back to the same bare metal on the RV that I have been using for my tests and only had about .5ohm, so I think that is good. Also checked power cord with Ohm side from the ground prong to the other 3 prongs on the plug and got 0 ohms, but this might not be an accurate test as I have a built in surge protector/transfer switch that I can here click on but only when I'm plugged in.
I did use my adapters down to the 20A GFCI on the pedestal and it did not trip that and yes I checked it with the test/reset button first.
I did try to see if a dog tie out stake screwed into the ground and connected to the rv with jumper cables would do anything and it did not, just like the above post said it probably wouldn't, although this only went down about 6 inches before it hit rocks and was also still in loose dryish dirt, and I know those copper ground stakes are very long. Went to other pedestals and all seem to have this voltage on the outside, and I can't imagine the campground putting in those stakes at every pedestal, if it was induced voltage. The power lines I see are not the huge ones on towers 100 feet in the air, just smaller ones on wooden telephone type poles, so not even sure if they are for power.
Still confused as to why I already have voltage in the RV trying to get to ground even with it unplugged, other than the posibility of induced voltage from the power lines, but then also concerned as to why that voltage seems to go up by 3V just because I plugged it in even with the breaker turned off although I guess that if there is that 8V just on the metal of the pedestal that would make sense as the breaker only shuts off the hot side and the ground is always connected.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGG!!!!!
