Earth Rod outside

[somersetlass]

I need urgent advice.

We were doing some DIY at the weekend, and now my earth rod outside seems to have a 'charge'. I wouldnt say i got a shock from the kettle and oven but there was obviously a charge running through them as i could feel the tingling in my hands, and even my kitchen sink had the charge. My husband went to look at the earth rod and when he touched the wire he did get a slight shock.

Why is this suddenly doing this, we have never had any trouble before?

sorry if i have not explained very well.

 

[mikhailfaradayski]

you may have a combination of a couple of problems.
the earth rod may not be very 'intimate' with the earth its buried in and has a high resistance connection.

If that is coupled with some other fault within the house (appliance or fixed wiring) this could lead to the situation you describe.

Without any test equipment and eyes on the job its a bit difficult to say with any more certainty, i would advise you seek the services of a sparky, sorry

 

[electronicsuk]

Assuming the rod is connected, which is probably is if you're getting a shock off it, there must be some current flowing down to earth. In a TT installation such as yours, this should cause the RCD to trip, which obviously it has not.

So, as above, you have a couple of potential problems - an earth fault and lack of working RCD protection and/or very high resistance earth. You really need to call an electrician to sort this ASAP, and for your own safety I would recommend powering down the entire installation at the consumer unit until it has been checked out.

FWIW, what DIY work did you carry out? Was it electrical? Could you have drilled or put a nail through a cable?

 

[somersetlass]

Hello. We were wallpapering, and took a couple of sockets off the wall, and then put them back on again insteading of cutting round them. My husband has checked that he put them back together again properly and he has.

We did one socket, then a few hours later my daughter said she got a 'shock' from the kettle, and then we did the other socket about an hour later and my husband got a shock from that one, he stupidly put a screwdriver on the live wire (he though i had turned it all off!).

When he tried to attach the wire to the earth rod outside and got the shock, it did trip everything out.

 

[ricicle]

Please call a competant Electrician asap for your own and your family's safety !

 

[electronicsuk]

When he tried to attach the wire to the earth rod outside and got the shock, it did trip everything out.

The earth rod was never connected to the installation?! I seriously hope you haven't left it disconnected just to stop the installation from tripping.

Turn everything OFF and call out an electrician.

 

[securespark]

Can you post some pictures of your fusebox, rod (fnarr fnarr!) and RCD etc...?

 

[Space cat]

Here's my best guess:

1) Your earth connection wasn't very good in the first place. The capacitive leakage current from live to earth - which is always present - would have generated a voltage drop across this bad connection but not enough for you to have noticed. Capacitive leakage is not enough to trip an RCD. If it was, the things would be permanently off!

2) A bit of damp wallpaper got in behind that first socket between live and earth, greatly increasing the leakage current. The voltage drop across that bad earth connection went up and so you got that tingling feeling whenever you touched earthed metal appliances. The combined resistance of the (hypothetical) wallpaper and the bad earth connection was sufficiently high for the RCD to hold.

3) Touching the live terminal with a screwdriver did not draw enough additional current to trip the RCD. That was lucky. Voltage makes you jump but it's current that kills!

4) While you were making a decent connection to the rod you got a shock off the momentarily disconnected wire. In this case the current was limited by the resistance of the (hypothetical) piece of wallpaper. That's not as bad as making direct contact to live with a screwdriver.

5) When you got a good connection to the earth rod, the leakage current was high enough to trip the RCD.

Turn off the power and have a good look behind those sockets for extraneous material. Then, as others have suggested, get that earth connection checked. You can see the joint from wire to rod but you have no idea how well it's making contact with the actual Planet Earth.