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From: rambler@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Dan Meyer)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Stray Voltage? on 60 Minutes
Message-ID: <4686@orbit.cts.com>
Date: 23 Apr 91 03:05:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: orbit.4686
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tonyb@titania.juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Tony Berke) writes:
>In article <1991Apr15.172627.13060@hubcap.clemson.edu> rbrink@hubcap.clemson.edu (Rick Brink) writes:
>
>   From article <746@newave.UUCP>, by john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III):
>   > In article <3853@uc.msc.umn.edu> dwm@msc.edu (Don Mears) writes:
>   >> Can someone explain what they were talking about on 60 minutes on 4/7
>   >> in the piece on stray voltage from old power lines that caused
>   >> dead and deformed animals, and shocks to people?  These did not look like
>   >> high voltage power lines, just  normal ~10kv distribution lines. 
>
>   You don't have to go to the cow barn to find stray voltage. [more...]
>
>I have an interesting addition to this...
>
>I have some friends that live near some big voltage lines in Mason,
>NH.  They have a fiberglass hot-tub sitting on a cement slab.  One day
>I was halfway into the tub, with one foot on the slab and one in the
>water, when I recieved a pretty healthy zap.  This happened to enough
>people that an electrician was called in, and it was eventually
>determined that the tub was floating, electrically, at some distance
>above ground, and the potential in it was getting there do to some
>potential gradient (in the soil?) coming from the power lines.  This
>sounds like 'stray voltage' to me, but I still don't quite understand
>the mechanism.
>
>P.S.  Ironically, these people own a veal farm.  Perhaps stray voltage
>is actually creating in dung-heaps?  (A voltaic pile, as it were).
>
>-Tony (tonyb@juliet.ll.mit.edu)


It is much more likely that your friends have a defect in the water
filtration/heating system for their hot tub. Since you did not pick up on
this, I suggest that you have them call an electrician to find and repair the
problem in their equipment.

-- Dan

Remember: " Buffalo never Oink " Seen on a South Dakota travel brocure.
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