DIYbanter - View Single Post - Grounding--ground wire

Doug Miller

In article ,
says...

Are you saying that if I grab a white wire in a household circuit and
stick my feet in a bathtub of water , that I will be perfectly fine
because both the wire and my feet are at the same potential ???

That's the truth!

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Electricity follows all possible paths. Grabbing the neutral wire while
standing in a bathtub full of water creates a second path to ground
through your own body, and current *will* flow through that path.
Whether it's enough current to be dangerous depends on the resistance of
the path.

Of course with today's plastic pipes, you might even get away with grabbing
the BLACK (hot) wire.

Tell you what -- why don't you try it, then let us know how well that
works.

IF a circuit is fully loaded (but not overloaded) then there might be 1 or 2
(or 3) volts difference between the WHITE and GREEN wires.

That doesn't matter. There's no current in the green (or bare) wire.
There *is* current in the white wire. Using one's own body to provide a
secondary path to ground for that current isn't very smart.