Ok heres my story although I have to say this wasn't my fault (Honest).
One day the missus says she got an electric shock off the sink! I think to myself thats impossible, and told her to be quiet (probably static or something). Anyway several complaints later i agree to get the multimeter out and check the sink ain't live. Suprise Suprise its not! So tell her she's imagining it. The next day I see her jump away from the sink holding her arm 'Its happened again' she cries.
Ok now I begin to think about it, I checked the sink again and 0Volts. The sink is earthed as you would expect. The electric must be coming from somewhere else. I check the washing machine ( At this point Im still not convinced, so my checking is not with a meter but with one hand on the sink and the other touching things within reach), washing machine fine, now the cooker Hob ZZZZAAAAAPPPP
It was a sore one. Right enough there was 230Volt between the electric hob and my sink, well earth. I worked out she got the shock off the sink beacause there was always water on the bunker space connecting the hob chasis to the sink.
The strange thing about it all was that the hob remained live even with the isolation switch was off. After alot of headscratching and lifting floor boards I find out what has happened. The cable from the hob goes up into the floor boards upstairs and cuts across central heating pipes. The CH pipes had melted the outer and inner insulation. The Live looked as though it had blown up leaving blobs of copper shorting across the earth, this resulted in the earth becoming live. So when I switch the isolation switch off the hob was still live due to the earth being LIVE! Why didn't the fuse blow? Well thats a mystery to me too, give me RCDs any day!
Anyway the hobs gone and has been replaced with a nice GAS one. Leaving me with a spare 30A fuse way
One day the missus says she got an electric shock off the sink! I think to myself thats impossible, and told her to be quiet (probably static or something). Anyway several complaints later i agree to get the multimeter out and check the sink ain't live. Suprise Suprise its not! So tell her she's imagining it. The next day I see her jump away from the sink holding her arm 'Its happened again' she cries.
Ok now I begin to think about it, I checked the sink again and 0Volts. The sink is earthed as you would expect. The electric must be coming from somewhere else. I check the washing machine ( At this point Im still not convinced, so my checking is not with a meter but with one hand on the sink and the other touching things within reach), washing machine fine, now the cooker Hob ZZZZAAAAAPPPP
It was a sore one. Right enough there was 230Volt between the electric hob and my sink, well earth. I worked out she got the shock off the sink beacause there was always water on the bunker space connecting the hob chasis to the sink.The strange thing about it all was that the hob remained live even with the isolation switch was off. After alot of headscratching and lifting floor boards I find out what has happened. The cable from the hob goes up into the floor boards upstairs and cuts across central heating pipes. The CH pipes had melted the outer and inner insulation. The Live looked as though it had blown up leaving blobs of copper shorting across the earth, this resulted in the earth becoming live. So when I switch the isolation switch off the hob was still live due to the earth being LIVE! Why didn't the fuse blow? Well thats a mystery to me too, give me RCDs any day!
Anyway the hobs gone and has been replaced with a nice GAS one. Leaving me with a spare 30A fuse way
