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(Geoff) wrote in message . com...
I would be grateful for some advise regarding a fitted dish washer. I
was in the process of removing it from its kitchen cabinet when I had
an electric shock on touching both the washer's metal interior and the
stainless steel sink. I checked which was live and using one of those
cicuit testing screw drivers it was the dishwasher. Neither the
circuit breaker or the main RCD tripped. I have had a good look at the
wiring in the dishwasher and can find no obvious fault. I have also
tested the diswasher regularly and it has not been live again. I
assume the shock was caused by me shorting the circuit between the
then "live" dishwasher and the sink which I again assume is
connected to earth via the cold water pipe. Can anybody offer any
advice as to what could have caused the fault as I would have thought
that if the dish washer was faulty it would be "live" on a regular
basis.

Yikes!

The RCD won't trip on very small leakages - say enough to give you a
bit of a nip or even enough to hurt but not kill. Especially if it is
a 100mA whole-house jobby. (For the circuit breaker to trip with you
being the path from live to earth you would be talking enough damage
to need to use dental records to identify the remains - assuming they
could pry your fillings out of the ceiling!)

Having said that, for the case to be live and the RCD / MCB not blow
there is something very wrong. The case should be connected direcly to
the "earth" in the plug and this should be at exactly the same
potential as the sink (assuming that it is correctly bonded). Either
you have two faults within the dishwasher (earth disconnected and a
short to case) or the wiring to the socket used by the dishwasher is
faulty.

Whatever happens I wouldn't use the dishwasher or even attempt to
remove it again until someone with good electrical knowledge has
checked it out.