Kinda off topic...House electrical issue?

I've noticed during moving one of the wall receptacles, that when the
breaker for that circuit is shut off, I'm still showing 17-19vac on my
meter. Not exactly sure as to why I'm still showing ac on a circuit
that is supposed to be dead. I've checked a few others with the circuit
breaker off and they too are showing 17-19 vac. The only thing I can
figure is maybe some stray inductance or some sort of system ground
problem. I've checked the breakers and everything seems to be fine. 200
amp main with breakers is less than a year old and I've always heard
square-D is good stuff. Not sure....Any ideas?

Thanks,
GW

In article <1132256350.902156.108190@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups .com>,
hk538 <hk5388@gmail.com> wrote:

I've noticed during moving one of the wall receptacles, that when the
breaker for that circuit is shut off, I'm still showing 17-19vac on my
meter. Not exactly sure as to why I'm still showing ac on a circuit
that is supposed to be dead. I've checked a few others with the circuit
breaker off and they too are showing 17-19 vac. The only thing I can
figure is maybe some stray inductance or some sort of system ground
problem. I've checked the breakers and everything seems to be fine. 200
amp main with breakers is less than a year old and I've always heard
square-D is good stuff. Not sure....Any ideas?

Modern high impedance input DVMs are a bit of a pain for measuring
household wiring. An old analogue meter with about 1000 ohms per volt is
much more use.

--
*How come you never hear about gruntled employees? *

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Dave Plowman (News)" <dave@davenoise.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4dcd38c8e7dave@davenoise.co.uk...

In article <1132256350.902156.108190@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups .com>,
hk538 <hk5388@gmail.com> wrote:
I've noticed during moving one of the wall receptacles, that when the
breaker for that circuit is shut off, I'm still showing 17-19vac on my
meter. Not exactly sure as to why I'm still showing ac on a circuit
that is supposed to be dead. I've checked a few others with the circuit
breaker off and they too are showing 17-19 vac. The only thing I can
figure is maybe some stray inductance or some sort of system ground
problem. I've checked the breakers and everything seems to be fine. 200
amp main with breakers is less than a year old and I've always heard
square-D is good stuff. Not sure....Any ideas?

Modern high impedance input DVMs are a bit of a pain for measuring
household wiring. An old analogue meter with about 1000 ohms per volt is
much more use.

--
*How come you never hear about gruntled employees? *

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Leakage current in home wiring is often due to the presence of power factor
correction capacitors in older flourescent light fixtures, and is quite
normal

Arfa

In article <zhugf.6973$d4.3745@newsfe1-win.ntli.net>,
Arfa Daily <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote:

Modern high impedance input DVMs are a bit of a pain for measuring
household wiring. An old analogue meter with about 1000 ohms per volt
is much more use.

Leakage current in home wiring is often due to the presence of power
factor correction capacitors in older flourescent light fixtures, and
is quite normal.

And with most SMPS. However, I was meaning testing with no load. UK house
wiring is Twin and Earth - all enclosed within a sheath. This is a good
system to keep external fields to a minimum, but allows a degree of
capacitive coupling which with a high impedance volt meter gives very
misleading results.

--
*Can atheists get insurance for acts of God? *

Dave Plowman dave@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.