If you touch a test lead to a copper pipe in the house, and put the other test lead in a neutral outlet we get approx. 116 volts. An electrician came by and looked for reverse polarity in the outlets but nothing. Since the house was built in the 1930‘s we did have open grounds on the outlets which are fixed. The electrician seemed to think there could be a box buried somewhere and the wrong wires are tied together can anyone think of a fix on this since we can‘t find the box ? or a different check ? fix ?
If you get a voltage reading on the Hot side of the same outlet and the copper pipes, I would start looking for a broken neutral line. Start at the panel. Did the electrician open up the meter box? If not and he worked for me, I'd fire him for not doing his job completely. I went to a house where the plumber was replacing all the drainage pipes in the house and when he started to replace the outside part of it, he cut the main sewage pipe and the entire electrical system in the house went down. I found the neutral line connection at the transformer has come undone. I started at the beginning. At the meter base. When I found no resistance between the neutral and the ground that I standing on, I looked up. There it was. Good luck and may God bless.
If you have an electric water heater turn off the breaker or pull the fuse to it and recheck the problem. You may have an element going bad in the water heater. If this does not help then start shutting down individual circuits until you locate which circuit is causing the problem and start backtracking from there.
