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	Subject - Grounding Info jfls40 I am brand new to this forum, so hello to everyone. I have been reading throught the posts and it is an invaluable resource to read and learn from you guys. Thanks for being here. I wanted to ask this question just to get me started off in this forum and contribute something. I was working in an older home today which still had some armoured cable in the lights in the basement and in the detached garage. I was checking the circuitry in the garage and the neutral and cable showed 121 volts when putting my meter on it. The homeowner noticed this and I explained the reason I don't get shocked when touching the cable is because the power has already made a complete circuit back to ground but if I grabbed onto the hot lead I would become part of the circuit and you would see my hair looking like Don Kings, the boxing promoter... in your estimation, was this an adequate explaination you would have given the customer? thanks John A. Peters You can mmove it if you don't wait too long. Look for a trash can on top of the note. You have to be signed in and not wait too long. Hay moderator how long does the ability to edit a note last? Scott Vickrey Sorry I was moving this topic while you were responding to it John. A post can be edited at any time by it's author or a moderator. An entire topic can be moved at any time by a moderator. Alfred I would check to see if the neutral was bonded in the panel. Sounds to me there is something strange is going on. You should not have voltage between the neutral and the ground. Thanks Alfred Johnson jfls40 Yes it was bonded together in the panel. That was the first thing I checked. The feeder line running underground to the garage is an old Narax cable at that with no disconnect. jfls40 Situation: detached garage with underground cable coming in no disconnect, just a junction box. It is fed from part of the unfinished basement lighting circuit which has armoured cable. It then goes into homeowners newly remodeled basement office which is finished with no access points to where the underground feed leaves the basement to the garage. The problem? Getting 121 volts across the neutral and bare ground wire in the garage and the exposed armoured cable in the basement I get 121 volt reading neutral to ground. The ground and the netrual is bonded together in the panel box. The armoured cable is clamped into the panel box properly. The rest of the circuits are new romex and properly grounded. What could be causing ground fault? Could inadequate grounding or bonding from the panel box allow this to happen? I would like to hear how others handled this problem? One thing I did notice and I used to different meters when checking to make sure, when I first touched my probes to get a reading, it quickly went to 240 something volts for a split second and then dropped down to 121v. lctrc789 As far as the explanation goes I always use the plumbing theory to explain electrcity to homeowners, water comes in and it has to go out, pressure (voltage) does not change 120/240 as does the main water line say 40 lbs of pressure. It has to complete the circuit for it to work, if you come between that circuit ground or neutral or between the 2 phases or legs you will get wet or in this case shocked. If you are reading 121 volts from neutral to ground the neutral is either not a neutral or is broken some where and picking up the voltage, and if it did go to 240 volts I say you have a broken neutral some where and it is backfeeding through it. I would re do the wiring to save you a head ache and another trouble call later. stedder If the neut is feeding through (take off a wire nut from a pigtail and read across grd than it's unbalanced return, if you untwist the pigtail and read the upstream wire yuo will still get the ub load but there s/b nothing on the return leg. In the first case (w/ the pigtail still made up) you would have to be pretty solidly grounded to get a shock but in the second case (wires un twisted) and you grabbed that upstream wire you become the POLR. As for the 220 grd flt, could be a nightmare, (for the customer). Alfred I was working in a small town one time, the residential voltages and commercial voltages were used an the same old, out dated power line. The reason I know this, a laborer asked me to do a service call to his home one day. I told him to explain what was going on first. He said every night about 7 O'clock his lights would go bright then dim then bright again. He said he was tired of replacing light bulbs. After that evening it stopped. No explanation. He called the utility company, they said they didn't have the money to update the lines.