I am a complete novice when it comes to electrics but I have recently bought a grounding mat and so I've been doing some measurements and I'm totally confused by something.
Upstairs I get a reading from my body of 5 (ish) volts (bare foot). When I touch the earthing mat this goes down to 0.2. Great. The mat clearly works. My body measurement is consistent throughout the upstairs with some minor expected variation depending on where I'm standing.
The confusion comes when I go downstairs. Using the same equipment and the same method my body measurement is between 0.5 and 0.8 and this is consistent throughout the downstairs of the house regardless of the floor type (sandstone tiles, wood flooring, ceramic tiles and carpet). This is without using a grounding mat obviously. Thinking that the floors must somehow be grounded throughout the downstairs of the house, I decided to test that by intentionally ungrounding myself by putting rubber-soled shoes on. There was no change. Still getting measurements similar to those I got when touching a grounding mat upstairs. I've tried everything I can think of to distance myself from the allegedly grounded floor. Wellie boots, plastic, sofas, wooden tables, several pairs of shoes and the measurement hardly changes at all no matter how much I try. How can this be? What am I missing?
I'd be happy if the floors were grounded - saves me some money on grounding mats, but the fact that I can't unground myself is making me think I'm doing something wrong.
Upstairs I get a reading from my body of 5 (ish) volts (bare foot). When I touch the earthing mat this goes down to 0.2. Great. The mat clearly works. My body measurement is consistent throughout the upstairs with some minor expected variation depending on where I'm standing.
The confusion comes when I go downstairs. Using the same equipment and the same method my body measurement is between 0.5 and 0.8 and this is consistent throughout the downstairs of the house regardless of the floor type (sandstone tiles, wood flooring, ceramic tiles and carpet). This is without using a grounding mat obviously. Thinking that the floors must somehow be grounded throughout the downstairs of the house, I decided to test that by intentionally ungrounding myself by putting rubber-soled shoes on. There was no change. Still getting measurements similar to those I got when touching a grounding mat upstairs. I've tried everything I can think of to distance myself from the allegedly grounded floor. Wellie boots, plastic, sofas, wooden tables, several pairs of shoes and the measurement hardly changes at all no matter how much I try. How can this be? What am I missing?
I'd be happy if the floors were grounded - saves me some money on grounding mats, but the fact that I can't unground myself is making me think I'm doing something wrong.