What Type of Electrician Do I Need?

[SeanInLI]

I apologize that the title wasn't very clear. Here's the problem:

One of our outside water spigots (I apologize again if that's the wrong term), the thing we attach our garden hose to, has some sort of electrical current coming through it.

If you touch it, on dry days, it just gets you a little warm. Today I tried to detach the hose in the rain and, God-damn, I got a real good shock. My arm still aches.

Anyway, as this has gotten progressively worse over the past few months, I figure that it's only a matter of time before this could be a very dangerous problem.

My question is: what type of electrician should we contact?

We had our neighbor come over and take a look, and he's a union electrician, and he couldn't figure out what the problem was. I'm hoping that, because his job is involved more in laying fiber optic cable than it is fixing homes, a more specialized type of electrician might have better luck finding out what's wrong and getting the problem fixed.

Are there certain types of Electricians who might be more likely to get to the bottom of this?

Thanks in advance for any advice you folks can provide.

[HayZee518]

the grounding electrode for your service [driven ground rod, water-pipe ground] isn't doing its job. there is something at your service panel or feeding back to your service panel that is energizing your cold water piping. any regular electrician should be able to figure it out. a loose neutral, no bonding at the panel are the two most common faults.

[SeanInLI]

the grounding electrode for your service [driven ground rod, water-pipe ground] isn't doing its job. there is something at your service panel or feeding back to your service panel that is energizing your cold water piping. any regular electrician should be able to figure it out. a loose neutral, no bonding at the panel are the two most common faults.

HayZee, thanks for the quick reply.

My neighbor spent a couple of hours at our house looking into this for us, and he's a long-time union electrician. So for all intents and purposes I'd say that we've already tried the regular electrician route. When he came up with no ideas, we just felt bad asking him if he knew of, well, anyone better. That would have been a bit insulting to someone who, for no money, made an earnest effort on our behalf.

We'd rather not have a regular Joe come by and spend another few hours at the house (but this time we'll have to pay) only to learn that this is a more complicated case that requires a specialist of sorts.

Is there a type of electrician sort of "above" normal electrician who specializes in residential troubleshooting? We'd rather just go for the specialist since we already know that this is very tricky, having stumped and experienced professional.

Again, I'm not asking for anyone to try to figure out the cause from an internet posting. I'm more interested in finding out if there exists different types of electricians who are more likely to know this type of situation.

As an example, I'm a computer programmer. While that experience means I tend to know more than many folks about computer hardware as well, if someone has a real tricky printer problem I would know to point the person to a printer or hardware specialist.

Thanks again for the quick response.

[HayZee518]

in a quick response no there is no one above a regular electrician or one that specializes in residential who is a snap fix sort of person. electricity is very illusive and tricky. it will seek the most easiest path to a good ground. #1 your panelbox should be grounded at two points. 1) a water pipe ground. 2) an auxilarry driven or "made electrode" do you have town water and are you connected to the town's water system? do you have a well? if you have a well and your water piping is grounded to the house's water system then the entire house's water system is charged to 120 volts! have your electrician check the made electrode or driven ground - wire. maybe it has become disconnected or just plain corroded off the ground clamp. tell him to use a dry rag to move the bare ground around at the ground rod. something else to try. shut off the main breaker. take a piece of #6 bare copper and connect one end inside the panelbox to the neutral ground bar and the other end to a known good copper pipe ground that actually goes into the ground somewhere. then throw the breaker ON. if the breaker blows then something is feeding power on to the neutral wire somewhere in the house. if the breaker doesn't blow take a meter and go from the water pipe to another ground point, the test bare copper wire and see what you read. should be zero volts. if you read anything other than zero something is grounded through the neutral and this is energizing your water system.

[HandymanTrainer]

As HayZee suggests, there is likely to be a hot neutral somewhere....the best place to check is any newer 4 pronged 220V outlets that have been "upgraded" from the old three pronged type. etc...also check at outlets where cords are commonly jerked out of the wall, like where you plug in the vacuum on a regular basis then jerk the cord out to move it to another outlet...this can casue a hot neutral, which will make the ground hot too. If all else fails, you can at least eliminate the "hot" hose bibb by driving two 8' copper grounding rods 6' apart and then running a continuous ground wire from the ground bar in the breaker box to lugs on both rods. In this way you eliminate the use of your plumbing as ground, the only drawback to this is if there are other grounds attached to plumbing elsewhere in the home.

HandymanTrainer

[SeanInLI]

Thanks for both of your responses, guys. I guess we're just going to have to suck it up and get a guy to come by and fiddle around for a few hours.

As a note, this one spigot is the only place in the house where this happens. The other outdoor spigot, and all the indoor faucets, bathtubs, etc., are fine. My neighbor tested all those out with some voltage tracker or something. It's just the one spigot.

I'm really illiterate when it comes to this stuff, so while appreciate all your advice I can't tell you if my neighbor tried all that stuff already.

Thanks again, and you have a great community here. Glad I found it!

[HayZee518]

ok, then that narrows it down to just the one faucet. check the plumbing line to that faucet. are your plumbing lines throughout the house plastic or copper?

[Speedy Petey]

If all else fails, you can at least eliminate the "hot" hose bibb by driving two 8' copper grounding rods 6' apart and then running a continuous ground wire from the ground bar in the breaker box to lugs on both rods. In this way you eliminate the use of your plumbing as ground, the only drawback to this is if there are other grounds attached to plumbing elsewhere in the home.

This is all pretty much incorrect.

Ground rod will NOT eliminate voltage on pipes. Grounding electrodes DO NOT "create" a ground as we know it in the form of the third hole in a receptacle. This comes from a completely different place. This place is the neutral bond in the main panel.
Also, using the plumbing as a grounding electrode is mandatory in many cases. By this I mean if the water piping coming into the house is metallic it MUST be used as an electrode. This has been the case for MANY years. Recent codes (25-30 years) made a supplemental electrode (ground rod) to the water pipe electrode mandatory.

If there is plastic water pipe feeding the house then a water bond is still mandatory. This is to prevent issues like the OP is having. A water bond will ensure that if a pipe becomes energized there is a path back to the panel and the breaker/fuse will open.
Thing is, if there is a break in the continuity of the piping system, and there is a fault to the pipes they will stay energized.

Circuits should NOT be grounded to a water pipe in the first place. It can be done but only following strict guidelines. Doing this outside these guidelines can be dangerous. In fact the OP's situation could be caused by such an installation. See NEC 250.130(C)

Sean, you really are doing the right thing by having someone look at this. It is definitely in your best interest.

[SeanInLI]

Thanks again, everyone, for your responses.

Just for the sake of closure, we have found out the problem. Apparently, our next door neighbor had some sort of problem, and it was bleeding over to our house.

We had the electrician come in, who couldn't find the cause. He had us call our power company. They couldn't even find a problem at first, but eventually, after me shocking myself over and over he used some tool and created a circuit between the driveway cement and the spigot. There he found 6 Amps or volts or something coming through, I don't know exactly what.

They returned the next day and found our next door neighbor's house had enough juice flowing out of the ground to power a dishwasher.

I don't know the details, really. The neighbors were forced to fix whatever it was, and got pissed off at us for making them spend a good chunk of cash that they probably couldn't afford. They haven't spoken to us since. *shrug*

Anyway, thanks again for your help. Good luck to all of you.

[mrcaptainbob]

neighbors....

Was the next door neighbor with the electrical leak the union electrician you spoke of?

[SeanInLI]

No, it was the neighbor on the other side of us. But that would have been funny had it been him.

We're hoping that, since they have a two-year-old daughter, they'll appreciate the fact that we found this out before it proved to be dangerous for their child.