I was inspecting a property in the pouring down rain…
When I use my non - contact voltage tester on the main panel
exterior cover it went off… flashed…indicating voltage. It also
went off when I touched the interior panel…I did not remove the
(interior cover) because of this. Then I noticed that my voltage tester
went off when I touched the outside water faucets. Then I noticed it
went off when I touched anything metal on the inside of the house connected to the plumbing. I have never encountered this before.
I went home and used my voltage tester at my residence on the Main
panel exterior and interior panel and it did not go off. I also touched
my exterior water pipes and my interior water pipes…it did not go off.
I need feedback on this matter please.
Could be a number of things.
Would have been a good idea to dust cobwebs off the old multimeter.
Could be a short on one of the pipes or some type of ground issue mixed up with the neutrals / reverse wiring,etc.
I almost fried myself on a gutter/downspout using a metal ladder that way once.
The outdoor fixture wires were exposed.
Sounds quite likely that rain water is penetrating the main panel causing current to feed wildly to grounds . Water dripping on the breaker buses .
You mighht see a liht show if you went there in the dark .:D:D
I’m only guessing because contact tester are highly fallible but if you’re finding voltage on the water pipe and other metal parts it could be that the system has lost the utility neutral and the current is now flowing on the metallic piping system back to the utility transformer. Or it could just be the tester.