Any Residential Electricians in the House?

[Rattle Trap]

Here's the deal, I bought a Murray 200 amp panel a couple years ago with eventual plan to upgrade my service. Hung it on a 3/4 plywood base in the basement finally this spring. Just today I jumped the mains from my existing panel. 100 amps (fused in old box) coming across the 2 AWG jumpers and into the mains of the new panel until it comes time to connect the new mains to new service. Unable to do otherwsie because my new main wires won't fit the small old meter base.

Here is what I've done.

Black/Red -Main hots into main leads
White -common into isolated bus bar
Ground -no ground wire at this time as old panel is using ground/common combination

There are ZERO WIRES outletting new box currently. NOTHING connected but the power in.

I am pulling 34 volts across the unconnected panel ground to each hot, zero volts to isolated bus.

Why am I pulling voltage across an unconnected point?

Could a damp basement have caused this? This makes no sense to me otherwise.

 

[slant6billy]

Got a picture? Black and red hots into the new main - check/ make sure you leave the new main open (switched open). The white - your neutral should go to the neutral bus and you ground goes to the ground bus check. You have a possible ungrounded source somewhere in the area. I had a heater with a drop transformer that leaked around that same voltage. How close is your heater or other appliances? My Walmart DVD player bleeds 60 volts off the back panel (it is steel and the rest is plastic an insulated). The only way I found out was I read 60 volts back at my coax junction in the garage and saw where the coax into the DVD was frayed and touching the panel. So that leaching 34 volts is coming in on your ground.

 

[MiradaMegacab]

This is your main panel and not a sub panel, so you have to bond the neutral bar to the panel. Typically there is an one screw missing from the neutral bar and a threaded hole in the panel directly behind it, or there is a small bonding bar that links the neutral bar to the panel.
In a sub panel you would have to seperate the neutrals and grounds.

 

[Rattle Trap]

It is just as I described it. There is NO ground wire IN the box what-so-ever.
Neutral is is unbonded for testing, and main is in OFF position.
NO WIRING out of box, ONLY 3-Inputs. HOT-HOT-NEUTRAL

There's nothing to back bleed. This makes no sense.

I found an even weirder issue in wire I was testing before swapping, but we'll just leave that still unrelated issue out of this equation for now.

Stupid old house. I've been dreading completing this project for quite some time. Some of the old rewire from the 60's still remains, most is all new 12-2 AWG that I bought 10 years ago when the metals market was thankfully depressed from Chinese and Russian dumping. I should have bought a whole pallet full of 250ft coils...but at least I bought a couple dozen.

 

[Rattle Trap]

I'm wondering if maybe these products intentionally bleed current to increase electrical billing? Collusion between industries isn't unheard of, but they just call it faulty product until proven otherwise.

After some work, I'm down to 30 volts even.

What do you think the bleed back will cost me in un-used electricity?

 

[MiradaMegacab]

So the panel is mounted on plywood and not touching any metal.....
Its inductance. Not true voltage.
Put a resistive load (an incandescent lamp) between the neutral bar and the panel and the voltage will go to zero.
I had this with a generator reading 186V neutral (of the generator) to ground (of my house)
Using an incandescent lamp (one wire to neutral and the other wire to ground) resulted in the voltage dropping to zero. It was inductance, not true voltage. Had it been 186V the lamp would illuminate, pretty damn bright.....

 

[Rattle Trap]

DOH! Test LIGHT! Sure enough... that did it.

 

[joeblo]

Your meter is just finding ground through the panel, base, or mounting screws. Its a very weak ground that's why you only get 30 volts. Yes, dampness can assist this. With out the meter there is no bleed through. One thing to remember about electricity - you can't see it, and it bites! Good luck.