Thought I'd share a little story about those who work on others homes.
Long story short I was asked if I could help install a TV and cable box in another room of modeler home built in ~2000. When purchased by current owner 6 years ago a called was made to comcast to to install cable boxes, a cable modem and phone. They did.
Before buying another cable box I moved an existing box to the designated room to find the coax outlet had no signal. Here is where the story begins and troubling shooting leads to minor electric shock.
In short I looked in the attic, crawl space, and every coax box to find the missing connection leaving the coax cable void of signal and found it downstairs. Once found in the box I made a connection and went to cable source(inlet into the living space) to connect the source to the new room. While making this connection I touched the conductor of the cable and its outer case and was mildly shocked by what I measured to be 48vAC.
Inspection in the crawl space finds an amplifier, a wall wart 120vAC brick, and a wanna be ground into re-bar in the foundation (FAIL).
THis pictures shoes a Coax Signal Amplifier and the black cable headed right goes to a 120vAC brick which is plugged into a GFI circuit that has recently been tripped a couple times. Related issues??? IDK! What I do know is the ground point chosen below was a bad choice made by a company that should hire people with proper training to keep their services from harming others. Once again, a second set of eyes can see things overlooked by others. Re-bar into a foundation is not a a proper ground. If I were to pick this guys work apart in detail you see he also left the cables draped on the ground and drilled countless large holes through the house missing his mark, drilling more holes and LEAVING all holes unpacked and ready for bugs to come into the house. Another level of FAIL!
Wanna be Ground. Sadly the Proper Earth Ground Rod is only a few feet away though a hole in the foundation. AC mains into the house as well as the meter are a foot away. Why this guy didn't use the ground stake there in plain sight is beyond me. PS - home owner remembers the guy....
Now I am not saying this is the source of the 48vAC on coax core but if there is potential from some fault with house or equipment, this path to ground may not protect anyone. I need to take some equipment back there and test it and isolate the source. I would like to believe the house isn't compromised with a bootleg ground or some other anomaly but honestly I don't know. PS meter was from wall neutral to coax conductor = 48vAC. Neutral to outer sheath was less than 1vAC (a good thing) but doesn't explain the 48v.
I am not sure who will be back first to inspect this issue but I would like to find the source and solve the mystery as I'm sure that connecting a coax cable should not result in being shocked. PS - all equipment appears to work fine except the GFI circuit in the crawl space trips randomly and the signal gets weak.
Long story short I was asked if I could help install a TV and cable box in another room of modeler home built in ~2000. When purchased by current owner 6 years ago a called was made to comcast to to install cable boxes, a cable modem and phone. They did.
Before buying another cable box I moved an existing box to the designated room to find the coax outlet had no signal. Here is where the story begins and troubling shooting leads to minor electric shock.
In short I looked in the attic, crawl space, and every coax box to find the missing connection leaving the coax cable void of signal and found it downstairs. Once found in the box I made a connection and went to cable source(inlet into the living space) to connect the source to the new room. While making this connection I touched the conductor of the cable and its outer case and was mildly shocked by what I measured to be 48vAC.
Inspection in the crawl space finds an amplifier, a wall wart 120vAC brick, and a wanna be ground into re-bar in the foundation (FAIL).
THis pictures shoes a Coax Signal Amplifier and the black cable headed right goes to a 120vAC brick which is plugged into a GFI circuit that has recently been tripped a couple times. Related issues??? IDK! What I do know is the ground point chosen below was a bad choice made by a company that should hire people with proper training to keep their services from harming others. Once again, a second set of eyes can see things overlooked by others. Re-bar into a foundation is not a a proper ground. If I were to pick this guys work apart in detail you see he also left the cables draped on the ground and drilled countless large holes through the house missing his mark, drilling more holes and LEAVING all holes unpacked and ready for bugs to come into the house. Another level of FAIL!
Wanna be Ground. Sadly the Proper Earth Ground Rod is only a few feet away though a hole in the foundation. AC mains into the house as well as the meter are a foot away. Why this guy didn't use the ground stake there in plain sight is beyond me. PS - home owner remembers the guy....
Now I am not saying this is the source of the 48vAC on coax core but if there is potential from some fault with house or equipment, this path to ground may not protect anyone. I need to take some equipment back there and test it and isolate the source. I would like to believe the house isn't compromised with a bootleg ground or some other anomaly but honestly I don't know. PS meter was from wall neutral to coax conductor = 48vAC. Neutral to outer sheath was less than 1vAC (a good thing) but doesn't explain the 48v.
I am not sure who will be back first to inspect this issue but I would like to find the source and solve the mystery as I'm sure that connecting a coax cable should not result in being shocked. PS - all equipment appears to work fine except the GFI circuit in the crawl space trips randomly and the signal gets weak.
