in our basement we have a copper cold water pipe that runs to the outside faucet. We have an electric water heater. I felt tingling when standing barefoot on the concrete floor when touching the copper pipe. We have not noticed it elsewhere (but we have wooden floors and a fiberglass shower) I have measured the voltage and it varies from 12V to 20V AC [B]I have turned all the circuits OFF in the house and the voltage is still present.[/B] There are two copper stakes near the electric meter, one from before the meter was repositioned and a new one. I have not tried tying the two together to see if that removes the potential difference on the pipe... A neighbor 2 houses down who has all PVC piping gets 9V between the water and ground. Could the current be coming from outside our house through the water ? I presume that shutting of the main breaker does not disconnect the neutral (I have not tried that yet). So if current was coming in via the neutral line we would still see the current in the pipe...?

Advice greatly appreciated. I have a dryer outlet that i no longer need. It is a 30-R-30A non-grounding receptical. It has 2 hot, 1 common wire connected to it. The breaker is 2 pole 120/240V 30 amp. Instead of using the dryer outlet, I would like to put in a L6-20-R. We are plugging to a device that requires 240V. But it only has, what appears to be 2 hots, 1 ground. So I am confused .. how can this outlet work w/out a common wire? Can I just hook up the 2 hots, 1 ground, leave out the common and it work or is it more complicated than that?