smudger wrote:

I used neon tester, also can feel power through bare screws on fridge,
also shows on socket fixing screws with neon tester

Ah ok... as the others said, the neon beastie will not tell you much
other than you and the screw are at a different potential. But you knew
that from the tingle ;-)

Knowing what earthing you have is important here. It may be the whole
house is not well earthed (if you have a local earth rod rather than a
earth supplied by your electric company, then this may be the case). In
this case you may not actually have a problem, and it could be all you
are seeing capacitive coupling inducing a voltage on to the (partial)
earth. So long as you have RCDs in the right places this would be
nothing to worry about.

However you may have a fault. If you house earth is a good low impedance
one, then you would not expect to sense voltage on the earth as you have
done. This could indicate a faulty earth to the sockets in question. The
source of the voltage could still be capacitive coupling (i.e. not
dangerous in itself), but you are being made aware of it due to a fault.

More seriously the source of the voltage could be a more direct
connection to live. If this is the case then this is far more serious.

If you can't identify the earthing arrangement, or don't feel up to
working through methodically with some test gear, then I suggest this
would be the time to call for help. It may be you have nothing to worry
about, or it may be you have discovered a potentially life threatening
fault.

--
Cheers,

John.

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