Grounding of Water Meter

If I understand your statement properly, then there is some additional feedback that I can give.

The accidents and deaths relate to water authority staff. While replacing water meters, (with the meter removed) the supply side and the household side effectively become two terminals of a power source. One "live" and the other grounded through the water mains. We have extensive procedures to fit a bypass earth strap while replacing meters plus a few other actions.

Note that it is not possible to test for the potential condition since a defective refrigerator motor might be "off" when you test and then later provide a shock potential when the thermostat switches it on.

From my experince int he coal mines, there might also be concern relating to a phenomenon called "transfer potential" where the voltage at another location is effectively conducted through conducting materials (like the pipes) to a remote location (your neighbours vanity taps) giving them an electricall potential if they are in contact with "ground" on some other electrical device.

Thank You! Thats exactly what I ment.

oilcan13

There have also been cases where a fault in the Neutral connection in one building (house) causes current to flow through the Earth Conductor and Plumbing which are both bonded to neighbouring houses via the MEN link to get back to the neutral.

When this happens, both ends of the pipe become live terminals if the meter is removed or the pipe cut.

I gets worse when sections of plastic pipe or lagged pipe come into the picture (Hot water or Recycled water) and the water may be what is carrying the current so as the pipe is cut the saw or cutter "make" the connection.

Regards,
Sapper.

Thanks! You and "just an engineer" explained it quite well. I hope I didn't confuse a lot of people with the grounding of the "electrical meter" although If there are no water pipes , as in My garage/shop Which has its own meter, I had to drive an 8 foot grounding rod into the ground and attach to the electrical meter neutral line.

oilcan13

Oilcan13,

Is this a second grounding rod on your property???

Is there a distribution board or load centre in you garage with an Earth conductor coming from the house??

The reason I ask is that this may lead to other problem due to a ground loop between the two Earth rods and possibly corrosion problems if your shed is steel or steel framed.

Might want to check it out.

Regards,
Sapper.