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Nate Nagel

On 10/28/2013 08:17 AM, wrote:
On Sunday, October 27, 2013 5:22:03 PM UTC-4, Nate Nagel wrote:
On 10/27/2013 02:47 PM, Fred wrote:

"Robert Green" wrote in message

...

"Doug Miller" wrote in message

...

"Fred" wrote in :

How can I be getting shocked off my faucet? This happens only in my

bathroom & laundry tub downstairs. It's not all the time, but it's a

good

enough zap to make you jump.

You have at least two problems: a fault in your electrical system

somewhere is energizing that

pipe, and the pipe itself is not properly grounded.

Get a qualified electrician out to look at this ASAP: this could be

fatal.

It's probably a good idea to first determine whether this is a static

electricity shock or an actual 110VAC buzz. I'm betting on the former

because water pipes are *usually* grounded so it's hard to energize them

to

the point of getting a shock unless you're touching something that's an

even

better ground. If walking on a carpet has given your body a static

electric

charge then it could be easily dumped to ground when you touch a faucet

or

some other metal part of the plumbing.

Fred, is your basement carpeted? Are we talking a sudden spark and a zap

or

is there a constant tingling when you touch the faucet? Do you have

plastic

water pipes or copper? Does this happen all the time or just when the

humidity is very low? Do you have an electric water heater or gas unit?

--

Bobby G.

No carpet in basement. There's a constant tingling, and the pipes are

copper. This happens all the time, in fact, I just got shocked off the

kitchen faucet, which is a first! The water heater is gas. The problem

appears to be getting worse.

If you're getting "buzzed" you need to be very careful around your

piping and get it checked out ASAP. You've got at least two problems,

one, the water piping system is (surprisingly) not properly grounded,

two, it's getting AC voltage applied to it from somewhere. If it were

properly grounded, the breaker would have tripped for the voltage source.

The breaker would only trip if:

A - It's a GFCI breaker
or
B - The fault current flowing exceeded the breaker rating.

True, but if the piping were grounded then B) would be true, *except* in
the instance where it is a neutral wire in an appliance that is
connected to the water piping system not a hot, in which case unplugging
the appliance would "fix" the problem (and it'd be easy to guess which
appliance it is, as the issue would only show up when the appliance was
being used.)

nate

--
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