On Tuesday, November 26, 2013 8:22:48 AM UTC-5, Danny D'Amico wrote:
On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 08:20:23 +0100, nestork wrote:



No, houses very rarely have power factor correction. Most of the reason

why is that electrical utilities only charge their residential customers

on the actual kilowatts they used, not the KVA the consumed.



I always thought they only measured current at the meter?



Which again shows how little you know.




there is always going to be some net voltage sine wave in that

neutral buss, and therefore in the ground wire cable coming out of

the main panel. So, how can you NOT have current into and out of the

Good Earth through the grounding rod or pipe ...



Agreed.



Wrong.

Example: I have just a couple of 240V loads. Zero flow in neutral.



I'm not saying that current flows back to the generating station through

the ground. Or, at least, I'm not saying that yet.







And, I can't see why a net voltage sine wave in the neutral buss

wouldn't cause current flow into and out of the Good Earth at the

grounding rod or plumbing pipe.



Exactly!



Exactly what? That current flow is tiny and incidental. It's is
*not* delivering 99.99% of the power. You could unhook the ground
and power would still be delivered.




And, according to one of the pictures posted by G. Fretwell, the current

measured through his grounding rod is 0.142 amps. And that's without

any intentional effort to imbalance the electrical load at the main

panel.



When it gets light, and I take care of the grandkids getting to school,

I'm going to see if I can find my old ammeter and I'm going to check

my neutral and ground wires too!



Last time after you did some experimenting your alarm system
was toast. What's next?



Those pictures from gfrewell were inspiring!

We can make our own observations!

What in the world does him showing a tiny .14 amps flowing in a ground
have to do with your claim that the earth is used as the return
path for power transmission?