In article , Andy Wade
writes
tony sayer wrote:

Thank god for the 1974 health and safety at work
act!, double insulation, and RCD's)

The 1989 Electricity at Work Regulations and regular inspection and
testing in particular.

Well the 1974 act was a good start, as up to that time the safety of
employees wasn't a particular concern of employers as my dad found out
one day when he went to adjust the height of a circular saw blade, and
discovered the hard way that it didn't have the expected guard blade
protecting its underside.

He said afterwards that he didn't feel a thing at the moment it happened
it was the shock of seeing four fingers missing that caused him to keel
over.....

In those days RCD's were almost unheard of but had one been in place it
would have repeatedly tripped and shown up the "earth" fault.

Errr, why would the RCD have tripped because of an open-circuit earth in
the wiring? (I.e. it wouldn't.)

Humm.... Well the earth had come off at the distribution board and the
whole house was wired with this lead sheathed cable. So presuming that
the lead sheathing was all bonded together then there would have been
quite a lot of Capactive leakage from the live to earth, as one could
assume that at some stage the un-earthed lead casing would be connected
to another earth in the house, via lets say something like an immersion
heater or similar appliance, so I reckon that their would have been
sufficient Capactive and an unknown amount of resistive leakage
sufficient to trip the RCD.

There was quite enough current there to prevent me from doing anything
about it, and FWIW I have very dry skin and my hands were very dry on
that day, so I reckon that a trip would have been taken out.
--
Tony Sayer