Getting shocked by towel rail

J

jezzad

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Our entire house is connected to a 8kw Sunsynk Inverter and a 5kw Battery. Neutral and Earth are bonded via the main DB board. Inverter is connected to main earth also in the main DB board.

Heated Towel rail in the bathroom has been shocking us (bare feet) and when I measured rit was producing 35v. It is connected to a single pole breaker (dedicated circuit) and when I turned this off the 35v was still there. Contacted the supplier and they sent a replacement element which has not fixed the issue.

Turn the Eskom supply off and this drops to about 5v

Sparky came round last night and after lots of testing and trouble shooting turns out the 35v is getting to the towel rail via the earth circuit from the inverter.

The supply and return from the inverter are earthed commonly within the inverter on the earthing point, these are then connected to the main earth point on the house. When this earth is removed from the inverter the 35v supply drops to about 11v and we can no longer feel the buzz on the towel rail.

We have temporarily disconnected the earth and then are contemplating running a dedicated earth spike just for the inverter.

Anyone else have an issue like this?
 
jezzad said:
Our entire house is connected to a 8kw Sunsynk Inverter and a 5kw Battery. Neutral and Earth are bonded via the main DB board. Inverter is connected to main earth also in the main DB board.

Heated Towel rail in the bathroom has been shocking us (bare feet) and when I measured rit was producing 35v. It is connected to a single pole breaker (dedicated circuit) and when I turned this off the 35v was still there. Contacted the supplier and they sent a replacement element which has not fixed the issue.

Turn the Eskom supply off and this drops to about 5v

Sparky came round last night and after lots of testing and trouble shooting turns out the 35v is getting to the towel rail via the earth circuit from the inverter.

The supply and return from the inverter are earthed commonly within the inverter on the earthing point, these are then connected to the main earth point on the house. When this earth is removed from the inverter the 35v supply drops to about 11v and we can no longer feel the buzz on the towel rail.

We have temporarily disconnected the earth and then are contemplating running a dedicated earth spike just for the inverter.

Anyone else have an issue like this?
Click to expand...
My installers put a dedicated earth spike in, but I am not sure to what they connected it to.
 
jezzad said:
Our entire house is connected to a 8kw Sunsynk Inverter and a 5kw Battery. Neutral and Earth are bonded via the main DB board. Inverter is connected to main earth also in the main DB board.

Heated Towel rail in the bathroom has been shocking us (bare feet) and when I measured rit was producing 35v. It is connected to a single pole breaker (dedicated circuit) and when I turned this off the 35v was still there. Contacted the supplier and they sent a replacement element which has not fixed the issue.

Turn the Eskom supply off and this drops to about 5v

Sparky came round last night and after lots of testing and trouble shooting turns out the 35v is getting to the towel rail via the earth circuit from the inverter.

The supply and return from the inverter are earthed commonly within the inverter on the earthing point, these are then connected to the main earth point on the house. When this earth is removed from the inverter the 35v supply drops to about 11v and we can no longer feel the buzz on the towel rail.

We have temporarily disconnected the earth and then are contemplating running a dedicated earth spike just for the inverter.

Anyone else have an issue like this?
Click to expand...
This sounds like yet another good reason why one shouldn't have a permanent E-N bond
 
My light switches used to shock me. And my LED downlights used to flicker when eskom was off. Also 8kw Sunsynk inverter.
Sparky sorted something out with earthing.
 
Speedster said:
This sounds like yet another good reason why one shouldn't have a permanent E-N bond
Click to expand...

If you follow the earth wire in most residential households you will see that it splits off from the neutral wire coming in from the mains supply to the house, so most residential properties have it bonded anyway.
 
jezzad said:
Our entire house is connected to a 8kw Sunsynk Inverter and a 5kw Battery. Neutral and Earth are bonded via the main DB board. Inverter is connected to main earth also in the main DB board.

Heated Towel rail in the bathroom has been shocking us (bare feet) and when I measured rit was producing 35v. It is connected to a single pole breaker (dedicated circuit) and when I turned this off the 35v was still there. Contacted the supplier and they sent a replacement element which has not fixed the issue.

Turn the Eskom supply off and this drops to about 5v

Sparky came round last night and after lots of testing and trouble shooting turns out the 35v is getting to the towel rail via the earth circuit from the inverter.

The supply and return from the inverter are earthed commonly within the inverter on the earthing point, these are then connected to the main earth point on the house. When this earth is removed from the inverter the 35v supply drops to about 11v and we can no longer feel the buzz on the towel rail.

We have temporarily disconnected the earth and then are contemplating running a dedicated earth spike just for the inverter.

Anyone else have an issue like this?
Click to expand...
This is absolutely shocking.
 
when the mains goes off your earth must be disconnected from the incoming earth. ( islanding ).if your earth is kak that residual voltage can get to 200 volts plus and start destroying things .everything after the inverter must be on its own inverter earth and not muni earth .
 
Last edited:
deweyzeph said:
If you follow the earth wire in most residential households you will see that it splits off from the neutral wire coming in from the mains supply to the house, so most residential properties have it bonded anyway.
Click to expand...
Correct this is out exact setup
 
Username: said:
Unbelievably dangerous and irresponsible advice.

Please no one follow this
Click to expand...
One liners without any substance.

My installer connected a separate earth. The company is owned by a qualified electrical engineer who check everything the qualified electrician did.

He also spoke about islanding, to be honest the technical side went over my head. But I got the main point, in the case where the grid is down due to an electrician needing to some maintainence, you cannot be sending power back into the grid.
 
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