RV Hot-Skin electrical shocks

[jmsokol]

I found your forum while searching for information about getting shocked from an RV, and saw that a few comments were made here that it was OK to get occasionally shocked. We'll, I'm here to tell you it's NEVER OK to feel any kind of shock while touching your RV. Any more than a few volts AC voltage from your chassis to ground is due to incorrect wiring, you can feel perhaps 30 volts AC, and as little as 40 volts AC can stop your heart if your hands and feet are wet. Plus, kids and pets are especially vulnerable to being electrocuted since they have lower body resistance than an adult. Most of the time this RV hot-skin condition is caused by a broken ground connection on your shore power line, extension cord, or even the campsite power pedestal. And I'm now getting reports where the ground pin in campsite pedestals are broken, the polarity have been reversed, and 120/240 volt feeds from the distribution box is actually on the same phase, resulting in an additive neutral current rather than a subtractive current. So your 50 amp neutral line could be carrying up to 100 amps, causing connection burnout and possibly a fire.

We've now started an electrical safety program for RV owners called the NoShockZone. See www.noshockzone.org and www.youtube.com/howtoseminars for all of articles on electrical safety for RV owners. We began both of these websites last year after running a survey on RVtravel.com which revealed that 21% of RV owners report being shocked by their RV. See http://www.noshockzone.org/rv-electrical-safety-part-iv-–-hot-skin/ for an article specifically about hot-skin testing and http://www.youtube.com/howtoseminars#p/u/2/Y8h64X33aKg for a video showing how to test a 40-ft RV for hot-skin voltage using a Fluke non-contact AC tester.

Please send me any information on shocks you may have received from your RV as we're building a file for RVIA and RVDA on RV electrical safety. Your input and suggestions are welcome. We're also developing a NoShockZone seminar tour and looking for host sites at campgrounds, rally events, and RV dealerships. Plus we're looking for sponsor support to take this tour across the country. Please contact me with any questions or suggestions.

Thanks.... Mike Sokol
mike@noshockzone.org

 

[jimtoo]

Hi Mike,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum. We have a great bunch of people here and we can always use good information and help, especially in the electrical field. We do not allow commercial advertising or promotion on the forum. But you do not appear to do that. If and when you get a seminar tour goings please let us know. I'm sure you could make it very interesting with demo's and such.

Thanks for joining us and offering your help.

Jim M

 

[jmsokol]

Jim,

Thanks very much. I'm doing my best to educate as many RV owners as possible about electrical safety. And yes, I have developed some pretty cool tabletop demonstrations. If you have suggestions about any other forums where I should post the noshockzone.org and youtube.com/howtoseminars, please let me know.

Mike Sokol

 

[jmsokol]

Sadly, there was an electrocution death of teenager in Muncie Indiana early Sunday morning. See the story below. The really sad part of the story is that his family had been shocked by the doorknob of the backyard RV earlier in the week, so they simply wrapped the doorknob with electrical tape. Of course, the entire RV body was hot-skin electrified, so when he touched the RV at 2 AM Sunday in his bare feet while standing on the wet ground, he was killed. This will be covered in an article written by me on the RVtravel newsletter this weekend.

We're also planning a possible NoShockZone clinic right in Muncie at Ball State University, perhaps on the evening of Monday, September 12th. I'll keep you all posted as the plans proceed.

Mike Sokol
mike@noshockzone.org


MUNCIE -- A Muncie teen died early Sunday after being electrocuted at a home on the city's southeast side, emergency officials said.
David L. Boyle III, 18, was pronounced dead at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital shortly after he was shocked, according to Delaware County Coroner Scott Hahn.
The incident occurred about 2 a.m. Sunday at a residence in the 7000 block of South Meeker Avenue.
Hahn said a camper behind the residence became energized after an electrical wire was run from the house to the camper.
"When they would go (into the camper), they would feel a little jolt, so they wrapped the door knob in electrical tape so when they turned it, they wouldn't get shocked," Hahn said.
Boyle, who was barefoot, according to Hahn, was electrocuted as he stepped from the wet ground onto the camper's metal step.
"It caused an arrhythmia in (Boyle's) heart," Hahn said. "It appears to be just an accident."
Emergency responders attempted to revive Boyle at the scene, but the Muncie teen died en route to the hospital, Hahn said.
Boyle's fiancée and his friends were at the residence when the electrocution occurred, though nobody else was reportedly injured.

 

[merlinb]

If you don't think this is a serious problem, you should read the lead article in this week's "RV Travel Newsletter: Issue 492." A young man was electrocuted (died) when he stepped into a travel trailer parked in the back yard of a home. They knew there was a problem with this trailer because they had wrapped the door knob with electrical tape. WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Someone should get the grand prize "stupid award" for that.

 

[jmsokol]

If you don't think this is a serious problem, you should read the lead article in this week's "RV Travel Newsletter: Issue 492."

The really sad thing is that I had just taught a NoShockZone seminar at Sun Motors in Harrisburg PA only 12 hours before this young man was killed in Muncie. And the main point I stressed over and over in my presentation was that if you ever feel even the slightest tingle from your RV, UNPLUG THE SHORE POWER NOW and test the grounds. You should never feel an electrical tingle or jolt from any RV or trailer EVER. Please take the time to read my NoShockZone articles at www.NoShockZone.org or sign up for the RVtravel.com newsletter where they're rerunning my 12 part series about RV electricity for the next 12 weeks. And please email me at mike@noshockzone.org if you have a 120-volt RV electrical problem that you or your RV technician can't resolve.

I should have an article written about the reasons for RV hot-skin conditions very soon, perhaps next week. In the meantime, never continue to use an RV that you've felt a shock on. Always disconnect the shore power immediately, and have the entire electrical system checked by an electrician for ground continuity from the pedestal, through the extension cord, to the ground bonding point on the RV chassis itself. The life you save may be your own that of a loved one.

Mike Sokol
www.NoShockZone.org

 

[jmgratz]

Not long ago I was assigned a site at an RV Park (a 10 10 10 rate park). When I got to the assigned site I plugged in my Progressive Industries EMS and it indicated an open ground on the pedestal. I reported this to the office and they moved me to another site on a different row. I checked the 7 sites on the row I was initially assigned and they all checked open ground. The 2nd site I was assigned to on the different row checked ok. I am thankful for the EMS and that I did not use that bad pedestal. The strange part was I later saw other RVs being parked in that bad row and they had not repaired the open ground. I told the RVers parked there and they did not seem concerned. I guess ignorance is bliss but remember it can be deadly. The next day I did see a crew of electricians working on the bad pedestals.

Here is my question to Mike. I have heard if you put your landing gear on the ground that you solve the open ground problem. This does not seem correct to me. What do you say Mike, will this solve the problem? I normally put my landing gear on boards so this would insulate it from the ground.

BTW good article in the newsletter.

 

[jmsokol]

Here is my question to Mike. I have heard if you put your landing gear on the ground that you solve the open ground problem. This does not seem correct to me. What do you say Mike, will this solve the problem? I normally put my landing gear on boards so this would insulate it from the ground.

BTW good article in the newsletter.

The sad fact is that the earth beneath your feet is a very poor safety ground. That's why the ground rod at your home's entrance panel is buried at some 8 ft in the earth, and even that's not a real safety ground since 30 ohms is considered to be a good earth ground. Nope.... the safety ground is an artificial ground plane created at the bonding point in the service entrance where the neutral wire from the line transformer and ground rod connect together.

So if a ground rod buried 8 ft in the earth can't protect you from hot-skin voltages, you can see that the few square inches of metal for your leveling jacks on top of the dirt will do NOTHING to safety ground your RV. Sure, direct contact with the earth can drain away small static charges in the microamp range, which is why school buses and oil tankers used to drag chains on the ground. But the safety ground of your RV needs to absorb at least 20 or 30 amperes of current, sufficient to trip the pedestal circuit breakers in order to protect you. And while the 20 amp outlet on a pedestal is supposed to have a GFCI breaker set at a 6 milliamps trip point, none of the 30 and 50 amp circuit breakers in a campsite pedestal will have a GFCI, and hence no protection for human shock. And no, the GFCI breakers you have inside the RV itself will do nothing to protect you from hot-skin induced currents to earth since your body isn't in their current path.

I demonstrate this all in great detail in my NoShockZone seminar/clinic we're planning to take on tour later this fall. You can also see some of my demonstrations at www.youtube.com/howtoseminars. So if you know of any RV dealership, large campground, or RV rally that might like to host this 60 minute NoShockZone seminar, please contact me at mike@noshockzone.org.

Mike Sokol

 

[jmsokol]

I checked the 7 sites on the row I was initially assigned and they all checked open ground.

This is exactly the type of situation where a single RV with a hot-to-chassis short will not only cause its own hot-skin condition, but the other 6 sites on the same row will also go hot-skin via the common "open" safety ground bus which lost its connection back to the service panel ground. Pretty scary, isn't it.

Now here's the REALLY interesting part... if that situation occurs and your RV gets a reflected hot-skin from another RV on that line, while your Progressive Industries EMS will shut down the incoming AC power from the circuit breaker, it will do nothing to disconnect your RV's chassis ground from the now electrified ground pin in the campsite pedestal. And that's still true even if you turn off the campsite pedestal circuit breakers. That's because surge protectors and voltage protectors typically bond the incoming safety ground wire to your RV's chassis. I'm not trying to alarm anyone, simply letting you know that just because you shut off the circuit breaker in your own pedestal that you still could be shocked from someone else's hot-skin condition if the campground lost ground continuity back to the service panel. Again, I'm working on a live demonstration of this effect for a future youtube video. Stay tuned...

Mike Sokol

 

[TedS]

Sensing a tingling sensation when touching the RV should be a warning that something is not right.

The only RV shock I expect is sticker shock.

Good subject, jmsokol. I look forward to more.

 

[DRGalligher]

Not long ago I was assigned a site at an RV Park (a 10 10 10 rate park). When I got to the assigned site I plugged in my Progressive Industries EMS and it indicated an open ground on the pedestal. I reported this to the office and they moved me to another site on a different row. I checked the 7 sites on the row I was initially assigned and they all checked open ground. The 2nd site I was assigned to on the different row checked ok. I am thankful for the EMS and that I did not use that bad pedestal. The strange part was I later saw other RVs being parked in that bad row and they had not repaired the open ground. I told the RVers parked there and they did not seem concerned. I guess ignorance is bliss but remember it can be deadly. The next day I did see a crew of electricians working on the bad pedestals.

Here is my question to Mike. I have heard if you put your landing gear on the ground that you solve the open ground problem. This does not seem correct to me. What do you say Mike, will this solve the problem? I normally put my landing gear on boards so this would insulate it from the ground.

BTW good article in the newsletter.

We too have the Progressive Industries hard wired surge protector and it detects faulty wiring and stops anything from coming into the RV if it's less than adequate.

 

[leftyf]

The sad fact is that the earth beneath your feet is a very poor safety ground. That's why the ground rod at your home's entrance panel is buried at some 8 ft in the earth, and even that's not a real safety ground since 30 ohms is considered to be a good earth ground. Nope.... the safety ground is an artificial ground plane created at the bonding point in the service entrance where the neutral wire from the line transformer and ground rod connect together.

So if a ground rod buried 8 ft in the earth can't protect you from hot-skin voltages, you can see that the few square inches of metal for your leveling jacks on top of the dirt will do NOTHING to safety ground your RV. Sure, direct contact with the earth can drain away small static charges in the microamp range, which is why school buses and oil tankers used to drag chains on the ground. But the safety ground of your RV needs to absorb at least 20 or 30 amperes of current, sufficient to trip the pedestal circuit breakers in order to protect you. And while the 20 amp outlet on a pedestal is supposed to have a GFCI breaker set at a 6 milliamps trip point, none of the 30 and 50 amp circuit breakers in a campsite pedestal will have a GFCI, and hence no protection for human shock. And no, the GFCI breakers you have inside the RV itself will do nothing to protect you from hot-skin induced currents to earth since your body isn't in their current path.

Mike Sokol

Mike, I disagree. The purpose of lowering one of the landing gear to earth is to alleviate "ground loops" and to provide some type of return to ground other than your body. In 20 years of Rving, I've only found a handful of camp-grounds that had their wiring done correctly. Most don't have anything other than a hot and a return...safety ground is non-existent.

While inducing a direct ground in the landing gear may not be your idea of the perfect ground, it sure is helluva lot better than nothing. I am the only one on this entire row or RV's that do not get shocked when it rains here...I'm also the only one that has a rear landing gear sitting in the dirt.

In Korea, we had a ground plate that was buried nearly 10 feet under ground..and still had to be periodically treated with salts to maintain any semblance of a true ground. The ground plates were scheduled to be replaced every 5 years. Most had to be done every three.

When you check into an RV park you don't plan on rebuilding their electrical infrastructure, you just need a way to provide your family with additional safety. Lowering a landing gear to dirt will provide that.

 

[jmsokol]

We too have the Progressive Industries hard-wired surge protector and it detects faulty wiring and stops anything from coming into the RV if it's less than adequate.

I talked to one of the engineers at Progressive Industries last week and confirmed that their products only disconnect the incoming hot wire(s) and possibly the Neutral line from your RV in the event it detects an incoming voltage that's too high, too low, or finds an open safety ground. Unfortunately, it does NOT disconnect the incoming safety ground wire from your RV's chassis ground since that's hard-wired through to the RV chassis without a disconnect relay. So while it certainly protects you from an open ground by not turning on and passing through 120 or 120/240 volt power from the Hot line(s), that only protects you from a self-induced hot-skin situation, where an appliance in your own RV can cause an open RV ground to energize your chassis. It will do nothing to protect you from a reflected hot-skin voltage caused by another RV on the same campground loop which has lost its master ground connection back to the campground's service entrance. This typically happens because campsite pedestals are wired in a daisy-chain fashion to save wiring costs.

Now, this is certainly a pretty rare circumstance, but jmgratz was in that very situation, and if some other RV in that group of seven campsites had an appliance that shorted from hot-to-chassis, then EVERYONE in that part of the campground would have a hot-skin voltage as well, no matter what kind of voltage protection devices was in line. Sorry, but that's what the electrical schematics tells me. If Progressive Industries would like to sponsor a test, I'm certainly willing to setup a demonstration and videotape the entire sequence for a youtube video.

Now please don't blame these RV product manufacturers for this lack of insight on hot-skin voltages. I've found that the entire RV industry is pretty much in denial about how and why hot-skin shocks occur. It's only when you draw out the entire schematic from the transformer on the pole to the service panel and all the way out to the campsite pedestal and RVs that you see all the ways that hot-skin voltage can be induced. And I do believe that many, if not most, hot-skin conditions occur because of some dynamic change on the safety ground wire in the campground itself. That may also explain why hot-skin shocks seem to come and go at random. It's not really you or your RV causing them, it's some other RV reflecting hot-skin voltages through an improperly terminated ground in the pedestal.

So for now my only warning is this: Never accept a shock or tingle from your RV. Even if you have a voltage protector on your shore power connection, it's still possible for a set of circumstances of occur on the other side of the campground that will hot-skin energize your own RV in the middle of the night, even if you have every circuit breaker in your RV and the pedestal in the OFF position. Of course, if the campground wiring completely complied with NPFA 70E (The National Electrical Code) this could never happen. But many campgrounds do not comply with the code due to poor maintenance or mis-wiring.

I still maintain that a $25 Fluke VoltAlert used on the body of your RV after hookup and at any suspicion of hot-skin voltage, is your best and safest way to detect hot-skin voltages of 40 volts or more. And that's considered to be the low end of the lethal range if your hands and feet are wet.

So nobody panic... I'm working on a way to properly train both consumers as well as RV technicians and campgrounds on the best way to avoid and repair the conditions that can result in a hot skin situation which can cause shock or electrocution. Much more on this subject later...

Mike Sokol
mike@noshockzone.org

 

[jmsokol]

In 20 years of Rving, I've only found a handful of camp-grounds that had their wiring done correctly. Most don't have anything other than a hot and a return...safety ground is non-existent.

Please supply me with the names of any campground in the USA with open grounds on their pedestals, and I'll be glad to bring them to the attention of RVIA, RVDA, and the local electrical inspectors. That's both highly dangerous as well as illegal, and could result in serious lawsuits.

I'll also be glad to produce a video showing hot-skin voltages with jacks up and down on both dry and wet earth. There may be a few circumstances were leveling jacks on the wet ground will drain off some very small leakage currents from an old appliance in your RV, but it certainly won't protect you from a hard-short inside that same appliance plugged into your RV. It's all about human body impedance and how it relates to earth impedance and ground-fault impedance. That's just how the math works.

I'll be glad to show schematics, voltage measurements, and a video of this effect. I have a special test rig I built that will let me electrify nearly anything with a variable hot-skin voltage, then test various ways to eliminate it. If there are any electrical engineers in this group, I'll be glad to share schematics and discuss how this all works over the phone. And if any of them can disprove my theory or math, I'm more than willing to admit it to the group. But I believe that I'm correct on this point.

Mike Sokol
mike@noshockzone.org

 

[DRGalligher]

That comment of only a handful of CG's are wire correctly (that's he's seen in 20 years) also concerns me. We had a hard wired surge protector installed on our fifth wheel and would not like being able to get power due to our SP protecting the unit. We stay at all kinds of CG's - from private RV parks, to FS CG's with electricity to state parks. The last state park we stayed at we didn't have any problems.

 

[caissiel]

The was a camper that showed me that his trailer had an electrical charge everytime he touched the hitch. I measured the voltage at around 10 volts AC, telling me there realy was a problem. We checked all the wires and circuit going to the trailer and everything was ok there. Later I closed the circuit breakers one at a time and noticed that the line in the kitchen, bathroom and Ground fault circuit was the reason for the problem. The circuit did not give any indication at the outlets but it cleared the voltage at the hitch and the metal on the trailer. I figured that the problem was done when they installed the woodflooring on the kitchen floor as they used staples to fasten the flooring and must have hit a wire because the problem started about that time, so I told him to rerun or trace the one wire running from the kitchen to the bathroom.

 

[jmsokol]

I figured that the problem was done when they installed the woodflooring on the kitchen floor as they used staples to fasten the flooring and must have hit a wire because the problem started about that time, so I told him to rerun or trace the one wire running from the kitchen to the bathroom.

That's a feasible explanation. A staple through the hot wire to the chassis could cause a mid-impedance "almost short" that would be providing a ground fault current sufficient to raise the potential of the RV chassis to 10 volts without tripping the 20 amp circuit breaker. If they had a clamp-on ammeter they could have confirmed this current path by clamping around each circuit breaker output wire one at a time. When you found the wire with any significant current even with nothing turned on inside the RV, then you've found the current source that's raising the RV potential despite the chassis being somewhat grounded. Something else that could have contributed to this 10 volt hot-skin rise would have been a less than perfect RV ground via the bonding point of the shore power safety ground to the chassis. A loose screw or a little corrosion on the RV panel's ground bonding point would suffice to add series resistance to the ground path, which should really be below 1 ohm.

I'm working on a simple way to confirm a proper a low impedance (under 1 ohm) bond of the shore power ground pin to the RV chassis. No test like this currently exists, and even the RV manufacturers only perform a high-pot insulation resistance test for Quality Assurance, which does nothing to confirm a proper low impedance safety ground. I'll keep you all posted as I develop this test.

Mike Sokol
mike@noshockzone.org

 

[jmgratz]

Mike,
First of all thank you for all of the great information however I for one would like to know how you came to know all of this electrical knowledge now that you have scared the shi. out of all of us. You do seem to be very knowledgeable.

 

[jmsokol]

Mike,
First of all thank you for all of the great information however I for one would like to know how you came to know all of this electrical knowledge now that you have scared the shi. out of all of us. You do seem to be very knowledgeable.

Well since you asked for it, here's the story.

I started out as a musician at the age of two (my Mom said I could play the piano before I could talk) then became interested in electricity and sound recording when I was 10 years old. My dad was a history teacher who knew nothing about electricity, so I read every electronics book and science magazine I could get hold of on electricity. None of it made sense until I was 14, when it all gelled together and I could "see" current flows in wires. I played in a bunch of bands in the 60's and 70's starting at age 15, always building my own amps, processors, speaker cabinets and such. I ended up going to college for mechanical engineering, but took extra EE courses. While I worked at Corning Glass designing packaging machines and supervising a bunch of electricians, they sent me to Cornell University for classes on failure analysis, troubleshooting industrial electrical systems, and control logic design. I then received my Master's Electricians license (with a 100% test grade) in Maryland, not because I wanted to wire houses, but because I wanted to hook the huge lighting system I had built for my band into power panels. After I left Corning I went to work for Angstrom Precision building nuclear missile guidance systems and have a military certification for soldering. After that I had my own computer integration and repair shop in the 80's, along with a 24-track recording studio on the side. I have also run audio at really big concerts and political events, and was responsible for much of the sound at the Bush and Obama presidential inaugurations as well as doing sound for Oprah, Hilary, Steely Dan, REM, Black Sabbath, Jimmy Buffet, you name it.

I won't bore you with the rest since it gets a bit crazy after that, but I also camped across 40 states and half of Canada by the time I was 16 years old. I've not camped much recently, but did take out my Dad's 26 ft Hi-Lo a good bit until he sold it a few years ago. So while I'm not a full timer or active camper, I've had my share of campground experiences.

I'm currently a technical seminar instructor teaching advanced audio production at large churches and universities around the country, as well as a technical writer for pro-audio magazines. See www.howtosound.com for tour info. If you Google - Mike Sokol Sound - you'll find some of the thousands of magazine articles I've written about mixing boards, amplifiers, mics, and everything audio.

I became interested in RV electrical issues because some buddies of mine complained about getting shocked from their tour bus. Now, a tour bus is really a big RV, and it seemed that nobody in the crew had a handle on why they would sometimes feel a tingle. I did some research finding Gary Bunzer's excellent articles on hot-skin testing, but felt I needed to go further with it. And since I have the correct background to understand RV electric shock, became fascinated with the amount of mis-information that was everywhere . So I contacted RVIA and RVDA, wrote a few technical articles for them, started www.NoShockZone.org to publish articles for the pubic, and began making videos at www.youtube.com/howtoseminars about RV electrical issues. As you can see, I also had to build a lot of my own specialized test gear since none of it existed anywhere. Fluke has been kind enough to supply me with free meters and instruments, and now cover all of my articles and videos on their own blog and facebook page, which is really very cool since I have zero budget for this.

I don't build or sell any products, and I don't have any connections with the RV manufacturers at all. That means I write what I discover about electrical safety without any worry about some marketing guy getting his shorts in a twist because they don't like something I said. And as you can see, I really work hard to simplify the most complex electrical systems into basic ideas that everyone can understand.

However, while I get a lot of peer review from some really smart electrical engineers, I get zero support from the RV industry as a whole. Here's how you all can help. Please contact your respective RV manufacturer and give them links to this thread as well as anything you see interesting from my NSZ site. Tell them I'm interested in developing and producing videos and articles about RV electrical safety for the public using their own products. In many cases I could schedule a visit to their factory for a day of peer review by their own electrical designers, as well as produce some electrical safety videos at their location. As an example, I contacted Heartland RV weeks ago offering to discuss electrical safety training for their customers (that's you guys) and have heard nothing back from them. The same goes for the dozen other RV manufacturers I've contacted over the last 6 months. If you want me to produce training videos and articles as well as offer on-site seminars specifically for your own Heartland vehicles, you need to bug your Heartland dealer or rep and put them in contact with me. I'm here to help....

Mike Sokol
mike@noshockzone.org
www.noshockzone.org

 

[porthole]

And there are two rallies coming up in Maryland.

Our previous trailer was a 29DBS TT Sunnybrook. One day after having everything set up for camp, I managed to bump into the dog pen and the trailer (awning I think) at the same time. What a surprise I was getting zapped! No wonder the dogs did so well at this campground.

This was 4-5 years ago, but IIRC, it was an outside duplex that was incorrectly wired. Only seemed to be a problem when I tie wrapped the dog pen to the trailer to keep it stable and plugged in the awning lights.