Current from ground of socket

I have current leaching to the ground prong of my socket. I know this because i plugged in my ground probe, with just one metal pin, placed the end into a small container with salt water and felt a shock.i tried this at two outlets. what could cause this? we are going to replace the grounding rod for the house because it is almost 20 yrs old and is probably rotted, could this be the cause? the sockets are grounded though, just with current on the ground side also. any input will be appreciated as i am at a complete loss here.

 

bump

 

im sure electricians on here will have more to say. i can tell you that ive worked on electrical in a home where someone mis-wired the ground as hot and blew up half their appliances.....

its hard to say without in depth knowledge of your home wiring....

 

thank you.
I don't think it's anything as bad as that though, the wiring has been the same for about 20 years and we don't have problems like that. I only noticed this problem b/c of my aquarium. The ground is wired properly, an electrician tested it. he agrees with me about the leaching current though. he is just not sure what could cause it, so i am just trying to find out, generally what can be cause of this?

 

I know you said the electrician tested it, but you may want to test it again yourself just to be sure.

An outlet tester can be had at any hardware store or walmart for cheap. It will have three lights on it and tell you if the hot, neutral and ground are wired correctly.

Your ground wire should be connected to a ground rod outside your house and to the cold water pipe. Either you or your electrician should test for continuity throughout your ground wiring.

If your ground is set up properly there shouldn't be any voltage present.

 

he actually used one of those and showed me while he was doing, so i saw the lights and what they meant.
we think the problem is that the ground rod has rotted because it was just a steel pipe not a Cu rod. we are going to replace it with a Cu rod.
Do you think that this could be the cause of the problem? or is there another possible cause and/or solution?

 

Check out galvanic Earth batteries. The ground (Earth) and a steel pipe make a very rudimentary battery. You shouldn't get a shock from it tho, I've never been able to pull more an a few hundred millivolts from an Earth Battery.

There was a makers contest once to generate "free" electricity to power an LED and this was one of the winners. You can also put up about 20 antenna and pull enough radio energy in to power an LED.

 

Wouldn't this mean that everybody who has a ground probe would have this problem? It's interesting though. I don't get shocked really, but i feel it when i have small cut on my finger, like a hangnail. i don't feel it when the ground probe and three pronged pump are unplugged. it does build up though, get stronger over time.
I really hope changing to a copper probe will help. this is really frustrating.

 

By code grounding rods have to be copper or copper clad steel. Some old construction used to ground to the water pipes, and may have used steel grounding rods, but not in quite a while.

Also, depending on how your tank is set up you could even be forming a very rudimentary capacitor. Saltwater is an electrolytic solution, and it can hold a charge between two conductive surfaces.

Also, with a cut you MIGHT be able to feel less than one volt, I honestly don't know...

Still, to be safe I would reground your main breaker box, and even consider a seprate ground for the outlets the tank on on close to them. it's even possible you have some stray current hitting your grounding rod from an external source... do you live near a high power radio tower, a utility sub station, or a mains transmission line? You could be getting some induction... I don't think it's likely... but when you get into the realm of high frequency and high voltage ...strange things start to happen.

 

I'm almost certain that they didn't use copper, but a steel pipe. This was a long time ago.
I don't live near any of those things or anything similar. Thanks for your help though.
we are to going reground the breaker box and if that doesn't work I will try to install a separate ground for the tank, but that may be difficult because of the location. I really hope this works so i can get back to enjoying my tank.