Yes, this!!!
Those look fantastic!
âââââWhen I boarded at a barn that put in Nelson waterers we had trouble with the horses drinking when the heaters were first turned on in the fall, and again in the spring when the heaters were turned off. The water in the bowl can get quite warm if it sits for a while and it was unpleasant for the horse expecting cool water. By spring they were accustomed to the initial warm water and were shocked to find cold water in the bowl. It usually didnât take long for them to adapt, but we did have to watch carefully to be sure everyone was drinking. That barn also had one waterer affected by stray current; that took a while to resolve.
I find the best human test for current is to stick one finger in the water and one, wet finger on the other hand into the ground, then be still and concentrate on the fingers. I can pick up a current Iâd otherwise miss this way.
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I cannot recommend the Bar-Bar-A enough. My plumber had never done such a thing, so he carefully and repeatedly watched the install video. Went at it the next week and my Horse Drinker was running within an hour.
It was easy to train the horses and they were happily drinking the next day.
I no longer fear Squirrel-a-cide poisoning a tub. No more scrubbing and getting jeans bleach stained. Best of all, no more busting ice up and skimming out the pieces.
I regularly depress the paddle myself to ensure itâs running right, the water is clear and cool. I also test my water annually to ensure the integrity of my well.
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Well installing the ground rod does not seem to have helped at all. And to top it off, my Bar Bar A is now broken too! I cannot believe this. These contraptions were supposed to make my life easier and instead they are failing me the week before I go on vacation. Why is horse keeping always like this?
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Just a little update in case anyone else has issues with this. I wish I had known sooner.
About three weeks ago I turned off the power to the field, which powers the electric fence charger, the Nelson heater, and some lights and outlets in the run-in shed. This was a couple weeks after the ground rod installation that didnât seem to make a difference. (But of course itâs hard to tell because horses remember the shocks.) I continued to provide a trough but if I encourage the horses to use the Nelson, they do so now. I havenât found it full of dirt again like theyâve been sticking their feet in it. That makes me think thereâs an issue with that electric line or something connected to it.
An electrician recommended by Nelson came out this morning and after $600 of troubleshooting, we still really donât know whatâs causing stray voltage or if there even is any. His tester didnât detect anything very strong on the outside of the Nelson, as heâs seen in the past. Disconnecting the ground rod changed the voltage by 0.1 volts so maybe it is doing a little bit. He could have spent many more hours checking every line and splice on the property and even then it could be something at the neighborsâ (their house is quite close to my dry lot/waterer), a transformer, etc. We flipped a lot of breakers and did a lot of tests but itâs still not clear if itâs the line to the field, the line to the barn from the garage, the line from the house to the garage, or something else entirely.
His recommendation to solve the problem without identifying the source is to install a concrete pad around the Nelson with rebar embedded in it and basically grounded to the Nelson (probably the wrong terminology but itâs called an equipotential grid, some info here: http://www.producer.com/2008/08/proper-grounding-grids-keep-stray-voltage-on-leash/). If they are standing on that, even if there is a ton of stray voltage they wonât feel it because the potential where they are standing and where their muzzles are in the water would be the same.
I suppose we will have to do that, or consider the whole Nelson a loss. Itâs very frustrating because nowhere in Nelsonâs literature or installation manual do they mention this possibility, yet when I called them stray voltage was their first suggestion. Even the concrete pads they picture on their website are way too small for a horse to stand completely on while drinking. Iâm so glad I donât already have a concrete pad that I now have to demolish and replace with a âgroundedâ one.
Also, this electrician told me that this concrete pad is now in the national electricians code for new installs, so why donât more people know to do this?
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I have a nelson waterer and it was installed on a cement pad. Never have had an issue with it shocking horses. itâs been in operation for 10 plus years.
I have been dealing with stray voltage this year ever since I plugged in my tank de-icer (Rubbermaid tank with de-icer that runs through the drain hole in the bottom of the tank). I noticed that the tanks was not being drank from, and I have a shallow spring in one of my pastures that has a lot of foot traffic around it. I have had the same set up for over 30 years and have never had a problem until now.
A multimeter (very sensitive voltage tester) showed 0.45 volts when I tested the water in the tank. It doesnât seem like much, but it sure does to my horses! Touching the water myself didnât produce an effect on me, but I was wearing rubber boots. I didnât want to try it barefooted.
I poured over Google searches on how to fix the problem, and the only thing I could find was to drive a ground rod into the ground near the tank and then run 8 aug copper wire from the ground rod, over the edge of the tank, and run the rest of the length of copper wire down through the water tank and weigh it down with a brick. I did that, and it did reduce the voltage in the water to a degree, but it was still showing 0.325 volts.
So I set up another tank with a de-icer in another pasture on the other side of the barn. Brand new tank, brand new de-icer, brand new 25â outdoor-rated extension cord. To my dismay, the new tank registered 0.9 volts as well as 3 amps!! YIKES!!
I had our power companyâs agricultural electrical engineer come out to look for stray voltage. He could not find any from their end where power comes in at the pole. We played around a bit with breakers and such and found that if I kept BOTH tanks plugged in, it would try to even out the voltage, and both tanks would average 0.3 volts. But that still wasnât good enough for me. Horses and donkeys still wouldnât drink from the tanks.
So, I took the newer tank that I had just set up and moved it way over into yet another pasture that was powered by a completely different grid. The initial power was coming from my momâs property, and I hauled it over to my own property. Got the tank set up, another brand new longer extension cord, filled the tank, and plugged it into a brand new outdoor GFI that is a dedicated line for my pool pump. It pulled 0.8 volts. UGH!!!
I went to Tractor Supply and purchased three items: A cage de-icer (the kind that hangs over the edge of the tank and rests on the bottom of the tank), a 16-gallon heated bucket (the kind where you can see the heating element at the bottom of the tub), and a flat-backed heated 24-qt. bucket (the kind where you cannot see the heating element because it is inside the walls of the bucket). the cage de-icer pulled 0.8 volts, the 24-qt. tub pulled 0.7 volts, and the flat-backed bucket pulled a full volt!! And this was from a completely different power source than the initial tanks!
Now what do I do??? We live in Michigan, and at some point the spring where my horses and donkeys have been drinking will eventually freeze over once we get hit with a polar vortex.
Back to the drawing board. I went back to Google. Page after page after page after page. New keywords, trying to find pages that addressed this issue that I havenât already read. Somewhere on page 12 of a Google search, I found a blog post. It said that to fix a stray voltage issue with tank de-icers, to use a 3 prong to 2 prong adapter with a ground eyelet, plug the de-icer into the adapter, the adapter into the GFI, and run a 12-gauge wire from the eyelet to the ground rod that I had already installed. I couldnât wait to try it!!
I went to Ace Hardware first thing in the morning, spent $1.69 on the adapter, and headed out to the water tank. Got it all hooked up, and now the moment of truth! ABSOLUTELY NO VOLTAGE!! The multimeter read 0.00 volts. I couldnât believe my eyes! Our power company ag engineer was scheduled to come out again that day to search further for stray voltage, and I told him what I did. He took his equipment out there and tested the water on the tank. NO VOLTAGE!! He loved the setup, took several pictures, and asked me to forward to him the blog post that I had found so that he can share the solution with other properties with similar issues.
Since then, I set my 2nd tank up with the same adapter, another newly installed ground rod, and again, NO VOLTAGE!
Here is a link to the blog that I found: http://blog.henrymilker.com/2014/10/the-shocking-truth.html
Now, if anyone has any great ideas to convince my horses and donkeys to try out the tanks and drink from them, it would be most appreciated!
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BO installed 7 heated Nelson waterers years ago 2 of which are for the outside horses. She put one between several pairs of paddocks. Smartest thing she every did. The one where my horse is had a stray voltage issue and it was tiny. I had several conversations with Nelson and they were very helpful. DH added a rod to ground it. We never found he source. We did have the power company come out to check the service which they did promptly. No problems, but they suggested getting an electrician in to check electric boxes including breakers. They had a tub for quite a while but all of them got back to the Nelson. They are extremely reliable but if there is a problem the horses stand there looking at it and kick it periodically. Usually it is just an adjustment to the fill mechanism.
I greatly appreciate knowing my horse has constant access to water no matter what the weather without hauling hoses all over and pounding ice in tubs.
