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This situationn had happened with a house in my area, and I have solved the problem, but I want to know what other people think about this matter. Current is in several parts of that house, I checked the flow of current and found that it is in the floor of bathroom, walls and in the steel pipes of Natural gas. When they open tap, then in the water too. So, what could be the problem? can anybody tell his views in this regards?
I have seen some houses - specially the old ones - have no earthing system. and they have used the water pipe lines as a grounding system. it could be something similar to this.
Or leaking water line in wall/floor has caused some sort of short circuit.
Depend on the amount of leakage current and power capacity involved, this situation can be categorized to be in unsafe condition. Normally, for domestic application, there is a limit for normal earth leakage current. We can see some articles in NEC standard for various classes of equipment. In examples Article100 for class A equipment. IEC standards also define similar safety range for earth leakage current. Practically for domestic distribution line, many circuit breaker vendors provide a group of GFCI or RCD or ELCB with range between20 mA until30 mA. leakage current For distribution feeder line sometimes they provide a capacity of300 mA leakage current breakers. I suggest to implement one of these in the distribution line to prevent similar incident. Especially for medical equipment, the standard for earth leakage current is much lower to prevent patient shock.
Now for the cause analysis. The big amount of leakage current can be possible by some factors:
-1. Fault condition between line and earth. It could be short circuit, insulation fail etc.
-2. Floating neutral or protective earth. It could be bad connection in Wye-grounding at the transformer. (T-N grounding).
-3. Accumulated of equipment capacitance between line and earth. (Normally very small compared to previous two reasons).
CMIIW,
Thank you.
The earthing might not be done properly or there might be a phase touching the wall in some switch board and as you are telling it bathroom wall and floor the moisture level is high there which can help current flow easily in wall or in floor and this current me approach a water pipe nearby it and current started flowing in water!!
This kind of problem occur due to improper grounding of the body of switch board, equipment's or panel board. The leakage current flows through medium which is available. This may cause to electric shock to any personnel. To avoid this proper grounding should be done and rigidly connected to the body of switch board, panel and equipment.
This is a potentially dangerous situation and it normally originates from heating systems like stoves or geysers. This would then mean that your house is not protected by an earth leakage or the heating systems are taken of the protected circuit. Improper earthing is a major safety risk and this house was probably not issues with a certificate of compliance. In South Africa this wiring system in this house would be failed and the authorities will disconnect the power supply. It is a well known fact that all metal parts in a electrical installation must be connected to earth via the main earth conductor. A loop impedance test will clearly show the failure.
I think it may be happen due to short circuit in one portion of that house , its may be in water line.
When this happens means there is no correct grounding of the wiring.
the electrical panel board should be properly grounded as per standard. the problem on that case there is leak of the wire that reach by water. remember the water is a good conductor of electricity. the only solution is to find out the wire damage and check also the grounding system. it is too dangerous, unsafe condition. electrical hazard should be determine and switch off the main circuit breaker immediately. these unsafe condition of electrical can cause fire, explosion and electrical shock. check the individual ampere electrical panel board if one line it comes high ampere meaning there is wire damage and reach by water.
Let me tell you in details, this thing happened with four seperate houses with their roofs attached to each other, all of the houses doesn't have any kind of earthing system, one of the house had leakage of electricity, that was due to short circuit. the current flew in the foundation and then steel fixation, the four roofs are attached to each other, so that's why the current flew to every house, it was quite difficult to find out the problem, but finally the fault detected.
As far as Gas pipes concerned, the gas pipe was iron pipe and one of the pipe was touching the water pipe. So, it wouldn't be hard to seperate them and get rid of that damn current flow in gas pipes.
All types of piping system connected with electrical system viz. water heater,gas pipe shall be connected to the earth separately to avoid this situation.
Ground or neutral connection issue,
Check main wire and ground(neutral) connection in main wiring first.
