Forum Title: Ground wire leakage on boat dock
I recently completed a service to a 4 slip dock and a month later, received a call from the builder of said dock who told me the owner reported to him feeling a tingle when he and his sons approached the metal ladder while swimming. The power distribution is as follows: The meter and house are at the top of the hill with 4-#2 Al conductors about 750 feet to a panel on the cliff above the dock. Fron this panel I ran 110' of 6-4 SOOW through the water to the dock.With one lead of my meter attached to some bare wire in the water, the metal of the dock shows 2.75 Volts. The system ground wire is carrying 1.8 Amps and if I pull the ground wire off the bar I get 8 Volts to the dock metal. With the mains to the house, garage and dock off I still have the same current flow, yet neither the new copper ground rod at the meter, nor the poco ground, nor their guy wire show any current flow. I have of course started communication with the engineer at the 'lectric co, but he hasn't been out yet. Any ideas as to what's happening here? Am I correct in wanting to disconnect my ground wire until the power company figures out what's happening? Obviously this is the thing that the $ 200 an hour professionals (called attorneys) pay for their own places on the lake with, so I want to solve this situation before it worsens.
Category: General Electrical Discussion Post By: Fred J. (Montrose, WI), 03/23/2017
Is the house connected by a metallic path to any other systems such as cable TV, city water, city gas, sewer lines, etc? Perhaps some other house is using your ground wire as a ground path.Check if some of the current is flowing across the water main bond. Also check if current is flowing thru the bonding wires for the telephone system and cable system.

- Allen Bailey (Davis, IL), 03/25/2017

Here is a relevant thread over at Mike Holt:http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=78799In addition to checking for current flow from other systems as suggested above, also look for current flow between grounding electrodes.-Jon

- Alec Stewart (Sheldon, WI), 03/25/2017

This might just be regular ground shift. You may never figure out where it comes from but the utility is certainly a suspect. Bear in mind the dirt is always a parallel current path in a grounded system. Have you tried establishing a local ground electrode system at the dock, connected to your equipment grounding conductor?

- A/c Services (Pleasant Valley, SD), 03/25/2017

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