Is it normal for water line to be carrying current?

[Herr Kutz]

A house I recently renovated had a small current through the copper pipes. Even with the main completely off. Electrician said he had seen that before and he figured it was either a neighbor's house or the utility company had a short somewhere nearby underground. It is very typical in a larger city where there are street lamps and other municipal electrical units. Some street lamps can even give you a little shock!

However, I would definitely get an electrician out there to make sure everything is proper on your end.

Whenever I go to the self checkout at the local Walmart the screens always give me a little shock when I touch them.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The current that is supposed to be flowing on the neutral is roughly the difference between the current of the two legs feeding your single phase system. You do not have a SWER system, or you would not have a neutral wire in your service drop. The single wire you see is the single phase, which is fed to a transformer, the center tap from the transformer becomes the neutral which is bare in the triplex used by power companies down here, and the two insulated lines are the two legs from the split single phase.

Oh my mistake then, I figured SWER referred to the power company's end on HV side, but yeah I still have a neutral from the transformer and two hots so it's a standard "split phase" system, but on the high voltage side of the power company there is just one hot then I imagine the ground is used as return path. (I think poles normally have a ground wire that goes down it, but I can't see the pole well enough to confirm that)

But yeah when I get the chance I'll check the mast to see what kind of current is going through the neutral just to determine if it's completely cut somewhere, or just a really bad connection. (it's only spot I can safely measure as the one inside is behind a bunch of live wires in the cut off switch) When I measured the neutral going to the cut off switch I was getting more current than I get at the ground going to the water pipe. So current is going elsewhere too. In the end I'll probably have to get the power company to pull the meter so we can check the connections. I'm guessing anything after the meter is their responsibility, so I'll want to do my best to prove the trouble there before I call.

Who knows how long it's been like this really, so I'm not that worried, but it's still obviously a problem.

This is what made me think of checking, random pic on Reddit. Someone used the gas line as ground and clearly their neutral must have failed completely:

What I find amazing is that they have enough current flowing through there for it to get that hot. That has to be a couple 100 amps at very least. You'd think the breaker would trip.

 

[herm0016]

Oh my mistake then, I figured SWER referred to the power company's end on HV side, but yeah I still have a neutral from the transformer and two hots so it's a standard "split phase" system, but on the high voltage side of the power company there is just one hot then I imagine the ground is used as return path. (I think poles normally have a ground wire that goes down it, but I can't see the pole well enough to confirm that)

But yeah when I get the chance I'll check the mast to see what kind of current is going through the neutral just to determine if it's completely cut somewhere, or just a really bad connection. (it's only spot I can safely measure as the one inside is behind a bunch of live wires in the cut off switch) When I measured the neutral going to the cut off switch I was getting more current than I get at the ground going to the water pipe. So current is going elsewhere too. In the end I'll probably have to get the power company to pull the meter so we can check the connections. I'm guessing anything after the meter is their responsibility, so I'll want to do my best to prove the trouble there before I call.

Who knows how long it's been like this really, so I'm not that worried, but it's still obviously a problem.

This is what made me think of checking, random pic on Reddit. Someone used the gas line as ground and clearly their neutral must have failed completely:

What I find amazing is that they have enough current flowing through there for it to get that hot. That has to be a couple 100 amps at very least. You'd think the breaker would trip.

someone used the waterline as a ground, and it found a path through the water heater. no dielectric coupling. if it was grounded to the gas line, it would travel to ground and not the water line I think.

 

[Red Squirrel]

someone used the waterline as a ground, and it found a path through the water heater. no dielectric coupling. if it was grounded to the gas line, it would travel to ground and not the water line I think.

That's what I find odd, actually, even if it was grounded to the gas line the current would just go straight outside and to the meter/ground, not through water heater. Unless somewhere between that there is no metallic connection, like maybe somewhere down the line there is a plastic fitting or enough teflfon tape to block conductivity, so the current is flowing to the water heater, which is naturally grounded by the water line.