Minor electric shock with the power off... faulty circuit breaker?

[MagMrMax]

Apologies if this sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

I've just moved a socket downstairs in the utility room. Turned every switch off on the circuit breaker in the garage, uncoupled the socket, moved the wires, recoupled, no problem.

I then went to change a standard light switch in an upstairs bedroom. It's got two red live wires and 1 yellow/green Earth in the wall. I didn't turn the power back on or anything ridiculous like that, and I removed the old switch fine. On bending the wires to get them into the correct positions for the new switch, though, I brushed the tip of one of the red wires with my hand and got an electric shock.

I couldn't say which red it was (or whether I touched them both), and I wasn't going to try and repeat the experiment, but I was rather taken aback that such a thing could happen.

I can guarantee that every switch on the breaker was off at the time I was shocked, so have I:

(a) got a slightly faulty circuit breaker,
(b) just been unlucky and some residual current or static buildup was left in the system, or
(c) something else.

Thank you

 

[terryplumb]

Show pics of your consumer unit and all the breakers that you think we're turned off.
Do you have a multimeter ?

 

[MagMrMax]

Hi Terry.

I literally turned off every breaker. I always do.

I switched everything back on an hour ago and everything's been working fine since then.

It's pitch black outside now (the wife's cooking as well), so I'll take a pic tomo in the daylight and post it here.

I can get hold of a multimeter, yes.

Thanks

 

[crystal ball]

Could be a capacitor discharging, I assume it wasn't full on shock

 

[MagMrMax]

No, but my right bicep is still aching a fair bit, although the ache in my right pec has subsided.

 

[crystal ball]

Sounds a bit more than a discharge

 

[flameport]

(c) something else.

Not checking that the circuit was dead.

Never assume anything - circuit breakers can fail, circuits can be supplied from unexpected places, things can just be installed wrongly from the start.

 

[terryplumb]

You told us that you turned off EVERY breaker. Did that include the main switch ???

 

[MagMrMax]

Yes, every breaker. There are perhaps 9 small black breakers and 1 large red one, all in a horizontal line.

I had turned all 10 of them off.

 

[terryplumb]

Is there more than one consumer unit ,or another such as a fusebox somewhere ?

 

[MagMrMax]

Yes, a small 2 or 3 switch secondary breaker was added last year to power an upstairs shower.

I felt safe ignoring that little one, though, as :

A. I didn't see how it could affect the bedroom light switch, and
B. The secondary takes its power from the primary, which I had fully switched off.

Thanks

 

[terryplumb]

Show pics when you can.
The " secondary" may not be connected the way you think at the consumer unit.

 

[crystal ball]

Show pics when you can.
The " secondary" may not be connected the way you think at the consumer unit.

Are you thinking what Im thinking?

 

[terryplumb]

What ! Your thinking about what to get my missus for Xmas ?

 

[crystal ball]

Yes, that slinky black number