The Seinfeld thread (or the thread about nothing)

[Jayaruh]

As you guys are talking about fixing mowers and learning things, I've recently learned a lot more about electricity.  I should mention that I started out in school as an electrical engineer and had such trouble with simple concepts and properly wiring my bread-boards, that I moved over to computer science.  So here's what I learned....if you have a faulty neutral line coming from your transformer, or if your transformer is overloaded, then current will flow through the neutral and even on your ground lines in your house.  The really cool thing is if you throw your breaker, you still get current because a breaker stops the "hot" line, it doesn't do anything for the neutral because that's not supposed to have electricity running through it.

Here's my short story of how I discovered this:  we recently (about 6 months ago) bought a house with an in-ground pool.  The pool has a pool light.  We were getting shocked (tingled really) whenever we were in the pool and would grab the brick and concrete decking on the side of the pool.  I turned off the breaker to the pool and discovered that I could measure with my multimeter anywhere from 3 to 6 volts (sometimes as much as 14) depending on the time of day -- if the Air conditioners (and I have two large condensing/fan units) were running it was higher, if I powered off the main breaker I could lower it to 3 volts.  I thought it was stray voltage in the ground and the electricity was being caught by the rebar in the concrete and then transferring to the pool.  Got a really good and seasoned electrician (40 years of expeerience, started apprenticing at 15).  He discovered that the pool light was energizing the water even with the breaker off, because electricity would flow through the house and wiring even when he pulled the power company's meter off.

So we completely disconnected the pool light from any electricity, and now the pool reads zero; but the power company is fighting me over doing a load test on Transformer and even just a thorough diagnostic.  But that's another story.  At least we can use the pool, and I'm now making sure my electronics are on Uninterruptible Power Supplies and Conditioners so that they don't have lifespan of a fruit fly from the "dirty" power.  The fight with the power company will continue, as will the fight with the water company.  My neighbor broke a pipe of some sort doing yard work and has water coming up out of the ground, I'm downhill from him and the water has saturated my yard and is soaking into my fence.  I contacted the water company, and since it isn't affecting anyone's water pressure (which is weird) and because they will have to turn off the water to the whole town to fix it and put us on a boil water advisory when they do, they are dragging their feet to fix it (it's been over 2 weeks now).

There are some real pluses to living in a VERY small town in a rural part of the Louisiana; but infrastructure is not one of them.  We don't pay much for electricity, water, sewage, trash pick up or internet services; but that's because we don't get much either.  On the plus side, I've had to learn a lot more and become a lot more self-sufficient.  The electrician was one of the few who would make the trip out to help me, and I had to  pay for his travel time (which I totally understand), which given his hourly rate, cost me another $200 on top of his labor charge for the work.

Okay, I think I've vented enough....thanks for listening.....I think I'll go watch some old episodes of Green Acres and marvel at how similar my life is to that show.

Those cement ponds can cause all kinds of problems.