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From: FC138001@ysub.ysu.edu (Phil Munro)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Stray Voltage in the hot tub
Message-ID: <91113.143901FC138001@ysub.ysu.edu>
Date: 23 Apr 91 18:39:01 GMT
References: <4686@orbit.cts.com>
Organization: Youngstown State University VM system (YSUB)
Lines: 21

> ...
>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.
>
  Has anyone considered that the hot tub of water sitting in the open
field will evaporate, and when water molecules evaporate they carry some
charge with them.  (I think this is the way charge is built up in
clouds, producing lightning!)

  Could it be that this is what is happening?  It was already stated
that the water was floating electrically.  The question is where does
the charge come from?  It does not seem obvious to me that AC power
lines would have an effect on this.  --Phil