On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 5:07:05 PM UTC-5, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Fri, 3 Mar 2017 08:37:23 -0800 (PST), TimR
wrote:

On Friday, March 3, 2017 at 11:27:20 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Fri, 3 Mar 2017 05:16:03 -0800 (PST), John G
wrote:

The current on that ground will be on every ground wire in your house.

I think you mean voltage.






Not exactly true. It will just be on the grounding conductor going
back to the main bonding jumper, that one circuit. (unless you have

Going down to where the ground wire is broken (if it ever gets broken.)

If it's broken, it will iiuc have 110 volts, but the moment the current
begins to flow, the resistance of the timer/wall switch will lower it
tremendously.

You could do this test yourself. Take a lamp, cut the cord down the
middle and then cut the neutral wire, the wire that would have gotten
plugged into the wide slot (whether the plug is polarized or not, one
can tell which wire goes to the narrow slot and which would have gone
the wide one, by looking or with a meter.) Plug the lamp in, then
measure the voltage at the cut end of the wire from the lamp. it will
be 110VAC or so but if you touch it, even if another** part of you is
grounded , you'll only get the electricity that can squeeze through the
lightbulb. **But don't let it flow through your heart, your torso.
Don't hold the wire in one hand and use your other hand to ground
yourself. Even if it is teeny and probably can't hurt you.

A 100W light bulb has ~.8A running through it when it's at operating
temp. Cold, the resistance is probably about 10 ohms, giving it the
potential to put up to 12A through you. In your test, the light bulb is
not a safety device, limiting the current. What would limit the
current is the resistance of your body in the circuit, which is orders
of magnitude higher than that of the cold light bulb. And your
"tingle" test has the potential to kill someone.