Shocking! Can you help?

[Qapla]

I will try to explain this clearly but feel free to ask for further info if needed.

By brother-in-law lives in a Mobile Home with metal exterior. He has been living in this home for several years without any problems. The home has a four-wire connection (2 hots, common, ground) coming from a pole just outside the house (about 45' wire run counting the down the pole, under the ground and up into the panel - all in PVC conduit). It has been hooked up this way since the house was connected and there have been no changes to the setup.

Now, there is a problem. If you are standing on the ground (either bare-foot or in shoes that will conduct) and touch the metal skin of the house you will get shocked. The same goes for the panel box on the pole. When measured with one probe stuck into the ground and the other probe touching the MH skin or the panel box, it will read somewhere between 55 and 96 volts.

The panel box on the pole has a main, a 100 amp breaker for the MH, a breaker for the pump and a breaker that goes to a sub-panel in an out building.

Turning off the breaker to the pump has no effect on the "leaking" power. Turning off the breaker to the sub-panel has no effect on the "leaking" power.

However, turning off the breaker to the MH kills the power going to the panel box and the MH skin - the "leaking power" stops.

Further testing has shown that if I disconnect the green ground wire from the MH panel, the "leaking power" also stops.

I should mention that when looking for the problem, I did find that the White Common from the meter pan to the main panel on the pole was lose and burned at the meter connection. This has been fixed. However, the "leaking power" still persists.

Any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[mmurphy]

Must have lost your nuetral and ground is tied with the nuetral so it is feeding back to find nuetral. He needs a electrician in there to get it hooked up in breaker panel correctley.
He will also probably have electrolysis to the metal skin of MH if not corrected.

 

[Cat_Driver]

Some sort of Varmit chewed through the plastic PVC and possible through the Plastic covering a hot wire.

How do I know, I had problems with a 25 pair phone cable that was encased in sch 80 PVC and was having problems with the phone system . Phone company kept saying it was a grounding issue.

Long story short I dug up the PVC line ( 600 ft. of it ) and sure enough something shewed through the PVC pipe and the phone cables. AMAZING, who knew.

I reinstalled the PVC and reinstalled the 25 pair phone cable with direct burial cable that has a built in metal jacket. That was 10 years ago and no problems since.

Replace the underground cable with METAL conduit and you should be good to go.

 

[ToadHill]

MMurphy is right. I had the same thing happen in my MH. When the electrician came he found the ground and the common wire were "leaking" across each other.

If you touched the metal siding you got a shock. When he repositioned the wires all went away. He told me that this only happens if the home has metal siding, if anything else you'd never notice the issue.

When the fix is done there will also be a reduction in the electric bill. Mine went down by about 1/3.

 

[SPYDERLK]

It sounds like there is a bad system ground and a resistive fault in the MH between hot and ground. Is there a main breaker on the MH panel? If so, turning it off should also stop the charge. ... Then, when back on flip each MH circuit breaker one at a time and you should be able to find the circuit with a fault. After fixing that find out whats wrong with the system ground.
larry

 

[orezok]

It could also be an open neutral, that is a neutral wire became disconnected at an outlet. Buy a cheap 3 light outlet tester and check each of the outlets.

The tester will indicate an open neutral (or other possible mis-wiring).

 

[firedog]

I agree with murphy, sounds like the ground on the home is floating. check the ground/neutral coming in from the service drop. It should run continuous thru the meter box to the main switch and lug at the ground bar. both the neutral and ground going to the house should connect together at this point.
There should also be a ground wire that connects to a 6' ground rod.

Sounds like you've lost the connection to the ground rod or from there to the service ground. BAD, BAD, BAD.

 

[Qapla]

Just got back there today.

Installed a new receptacle on a window A/C unit (220v). Not really sure the old one was bad, but one of the hot sides had slightly charred insulation at the end (cut this area off)

The A/C was repaired, so it could have been the reason for the bad end on the wire.

When I checked, there was no voltage on the MH skin. Hope the problem is solved.

Thanks for all the help with this.

 

[North West Farmer]

Prior to my retirement, one of my fellow firemen went to visit his grandmother and when he arrived she was outside, not normal for her, and she had black eyes and bruses all over her body. Of course, he asked what had happened to her and she told him that every time she went to go inside something knocked her out and she would wake up at the bottom of her steps. Being very concerned he immediately investigated and found that someone mowing the lawn had disconnected the ground wire from the ground rod and the aluminum door handle was hot and Grandma had been providing the ground.

The moment I read this thread this situation came to mind. My co-worker disconnected the main, attached the system ground and all was well, but he had a terrible time to convince Grandma it was o.k. to touch her door handle.

It appears that you have found the problem with a lot of great assistance. Another potentially bad situation resolved by the TBN membership.

Well done!

Nick, North West farmer

 

[Scrambler82]

Just got back there today.

Installed a new receptacle on a window A/C unit (220v). Not really sure the old one was bad, but one of the hot sides had slightly charred insulation at the end (cut this area off)

The A/C was repaired, so it could have been the reason for the bad end on the wire.

When I checked, there was no voltage on the MH skin. Hope the problem is solved.

Thanks for all the help with this.

If one of the legs had a burnt post it indicates either a loose connection or that the wire gauge is too small for the load.
Rechk the connections for the component after a few months of running.
Also chk for heat in the main power wire during use.