I got electrocuted! A few questions....

If you are asking question like that you shouldn't be doing jobs like this yourself. Seek professional help.
 
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Touching a live item with one hand and an earthed item with the other provides a path across the body, and right across the chest - past the heart. This is the worst type of shock to recieve.

you clearly have not met my ex
 
If you are asking question like that you shouldn't be doing jobs like this yourself. Seek professional help.

Completely disagree - nobody is born knowing the answers and this is exactly the right place to get them. The concern is when somebody should be asking and doesn't, not when they do.
 
Have to disagree there. You dont experiment with stuff like that and ask retrospective questions. It could hurt you, or others.

We wanted fancy metal light fittings in our house so i bought them, isolated the supply, opened the pack, read the instructions which clearly said that the switch MUST BE EARTHED, closed the pack and took them back.

Your lights will have had the same warning.
 
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Hi all,
I opened up both switches (isolated of course), and took a look.

Much to my dismay it seems that both of them were correctly earthed, all the wires were securly in the teminal, and there was no evidence that either of the faceplate screws had cut a wire.

Im currently waiting for a sparky to come out and check the earthing, but in the meanwhile what could have caused this? I was sure it was a loose wire and no earth connection.
 
the earth wire might not be connected at the source, or might have a break in it. in this case (especially in light switch drops) it can pick up an induced voltage where it runs next to the live wires. this will be twice as bad when the light is switched on.

If you have incomplete earthing on your lighting circuit, then there may appear to be an earth wire at the switch, but it probably doesn't go anywhere :(

To fix it properly you will need to take up the floor above your ceiling roses and run new T&E all the way back to the consumer unit.

It's plastic switches for you until then!

I don't know if you can still get them with plastic press-in plugs that go over the fixing screws. That would save you getting a shock off the screw heads.
 

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