Shock from water in the bathroom

[starspark]

Anyhow I thought ilovecollege (or was it alovecollege) was your alter ego RMS, starspark being one of your supervisees in the firm where you work?[/quote]

thankfully they have made the right conclusions.

 

[PrinceofDarkness]

Adam_151: That youtube clip has nothing to do with the O/P's claim of receiving shocks from running water.

The claim in that video is that electrocution happened because of contact with the (metallic) bath taps. That claim was rejected by HM Coroner when he recorded an 'Open Verdict' on that particular tragedy.


Lucia.[/i]

 

[debbief135]

wow got to say this is the first and probably the last time i use this site. A wind up? Do people really do wind ups on a DIY site? I think if they do they should stick to their day job as they are clearly not funny. anyway am at work and so on my phone so a bit difficult but thank you for those that told me to talk to an electrician, i spoke to one at work and he has said its something to do with earthing and bonding and to not use the bathroom. Will reply in detail when i get home.

 

[sparkwright]

The O/P would have you believe that a 'shock' is to be had from running water and from a wet flannel.

Some of you seem happy to react to this very silly wind-up.........


Lucia.

Wind up or no wind up I would have thought we should take this original post very seriously before we assume anything. There may be some confusion in the recollection of what actually happened. So I'm still going to say do not use bath/shower/basin until an electrician has approved it.

 

[debbief135]

wow got to say this is the first and probably the last time i use this site. A wind up? Do people really do wind ups on a DIY site? I think if they do they should stick to their day job as they are clearly not funny. anyway am at work and so on my phone so a bit difficult but thank you for those that told me to talk to an electrician, i spoke to one at work and he has said its something to do with earthing and bonding and to not use the bathroom. Will reply in detail when i get home.

OK I am now at home, as I say, thank you to all that tried to help, I do not understand electrics but this was a reply on another forum and also pretty much the same as what the Electrician at work said

"Call a qualified professional electrician to inspect and to verify that all of the ground rods in your system are properly bonded to the ground buss in your power panel. I am suspicious that the ground and the neutral are not properly bonded and that somehow, a line is trying to use the cold water as a neutral return line for you system. When you were touching the cold water, you tried to complete a ground return to through the wall. This could be very dangerous, possibly fatal. Call a qualified professional electrician to do the work first thing in the morning."

To those that said this was a wind up, then quite honestly you should be ashamed, just because you don't know an answer to something, does not mean it didn't happen, its just means you don't know everything! I was at my wits end, I am a single mum with 3 daughters in the house and I had no idea what it was, I know nothing about electrics, the best it gets is me changing a light bulb. I didn't know if the whole house had faulty wiring or just the bathroom, I just needed suggestions, I was always going to call an electrician but what I didn't know was if I had to turn off the electricity at the mains until an electrician could get here or to just not use the bathroom. Its a horrid feeling not knowing if your child turning on a light switch or the TV would be the cause of them being electrocuted. By you saying it was a wind up, you trivialised my enquiry, an enquiry which as it turns out could of been potentially dangerous.

Will think again before asking advice.

 

[londonboy]

OK, however the advice you got from the other site is incorrect.

 

[dingbat]

OK, however the advice you got from the other site is incorrect.

It sounds like an American site.

 

[bernardgreen]

OK, however the advice you got from the other site is incorrect.

It could be accurate. It could be that the safety "earth" in the house is derived from the neutral and that neutral is not at ground potential. So there is a potential difference between all the pipe work in the house and the true ground.

Touching a live wire does NOT result in electric shock if there is no other point of electical contact to the body. To receive a shock the body must touch two items that are at different voltages to each other. ( birds perch on 11,000 volt power lines ).

So in the bathroom there had to be another point of contact to the person as well as the water from the tap. This other point of contact could be slightly conductive walls and floors that are at true ground voltage, slightly conductive due to moisture. If the bath has a metal waste pipe that runs into the ground then that is a direct low impedance path to true ground. The pipes are at the potential of the safety "earth" which is likely to be the potential of the incoming neutral. Unbalanced loading in the area network supply or a network fault can raise the neutral potential far from the true ground potential.

 

[dingbat]

This is definitely a job that requires an electrician. As suggested asap.

I agree.

However, the claim n the YouTube clip that “A periodic inspection would have revealed the faults that led to Thirza’s death.” is a bit ambitious. I very much doubt that the average domestic electrician would detect the sort of fault we have here without being prompted to investigate.