Question. In an Main Earth Neutral electrical system, if my main earth became disconnected from my earth stake, what symptoms could occur, and why? Anything like flickering lights and why they would do that would be nice to know.
>>946868
Any short circuit won't discharge to ground throwing the breaker to open the circuit and then you can have all kinds of electrical catastrophes.
A short circuit will continue to short. Sparks, electrocution, fire, death will be some symptoms.
>>946883
Not even remotely true, ever. But good guess. A GFCI will offer faster, more localized protection from ground faults, but with no current to ground it will trip the breaker or pop the fuse on time-current which isn't the end of the world and is still pretty safe.
>>946868
It depends on the type of service. Quite typically across the globe the neutral is grounded at your service transformer. Not at your house. That means that most of your stuff will likely work just fine. Odds and ends like TV or laptop power supplies might not work, but most loads will. If you have a fault in an appliance, there's a greater chance you will get a small shock, but your water pipe should also be grounded so that's unlikely anyway. If you were to remove the ground AND neutral, nothing will turn on because there is no circuit - just an open, energized line.
>>947388
Scratch the part about the water pipe. I had that backwards in my head as I mostly do industrial crap and not residential buildings. I think the water pipe ground has to be deprecate from the ground rod/electrical connections but I'm not sure. Anyway, having a system ground is very important for safety reasons, but not 100% hypothetically necessary for the function of most things (e.g. Just look at light bulbs or other small appliances that don't have a ground prong)
If your main earth became disconnected from your primary ground electrode (like a grounding rod), it would still be bonded to the transformer's neutral and their ground and since you didn't specify in your hypothetical, it would still be connected to your house's ground wire to whatever outlets you got that are 'grounded'..
Water pipes are used as PGE in old installations. Your ground isn't necessarily visible, in old installs it will be in the wall underneath your meter.
You probably wouldn't even notice, the tools to test it are expensive. If you wanted to check, call your power company. they will probably charge you for the house call, but they're more likely to have the shit to test it than an electrician.
>>947402
If the power company is anywhere like here the test will be pennies on the dollar compared to an electrician and they would have more reason to tell you the truth than some weasel of an electrician.
