Ground voltage!!


Hello,

I move to a new apartment and all the ground outlets have almost 80 volts of current!! Is this normal? What can I do?

 Thank you very much.

Henry.

bushikai

My guess is you've measured the wrong thing.  A modern wall outlet has 3 receptacles.  The two slotted ones are where the line AC voltage appears, across hot and neutral.  (The bigger slot is "hot", I think.) The third, semicircular receptacle is earth ground.  Please clarify where you placed the probes of your meter in order to see 80V (you'll never ever see 80 amperes of current at a receptacle, because that would have blown any circuit breaker ever in a domestic dwelling, not to mention most meters).  There should be no voltage between earth and neutral, but certain defects in wiring can in fact produce voltages in between 0 and 120V across those two poles.

kota, if you are selling line conditioners here, I don't think Audiogon will like it.  Nor is a line conditioner at all relevant to the question.

If that is true, then you have a discontinuity somewhere between neutral and earth ground.  Could be anywhere all the way back to the circuit breaker box for your apartment building.  Or could be local.  You might call it to the attention of your landlord.  (Check other outlets for the same issue.)  Ask a real electrician if it's safe for now.