@justustilo8458

1 month ago

Electrician here. In real life application, this can get extremely dangerous as this is caused by a neutral to ground fault. Neutral, at the beginning of service at distribution (your breaker panel) is the grounded conductor (depending on whether or not your house has an exterior main breaker or an in panel main breaker) and that is to protect the house.

A fault like this could be one of two things;

1.) improper bonding of your ground wire to your neutral wire

2.) improperly bonded water line not within 5’ of entrance of service.

If your house is piped with metal piping for water, it must be bonded to add extra layers of protection throughout your house, as well as gas lines and other building structural metals that connect to any metal in the concrete that holds up the foundation of your house. If there is an improper connection; say an outlet that doesn’t have a ground, a handyman could connect the ground to your neutral on the plug and cause a house-wide ground fault, and the 60 or so volts that he is registering in the shower is because the neutral carries the unbalanced load of the branch circuit feeding the outlet.

This can be dangerous because the unbalanced load, regardless of voltage, can still be fatal if even more than .2 milliamperes. So if he is feeling a shocking feeling when he takes a shower, it means he is becoming the conductor between ground and technically power @ ~60VAC.

Although it drops voltage in the simulation as described here, the added resistance that he touches to his tongue allows for immediate voltage drop. In the situation in the shower, you technically become the resistor between line and neutral, posing a much more dangerous application.

Disclaimer: if you do not understand, say that. It’s a comprehensive explanation of what I have experienced through scenarios with similar instances the original person was demonstrating.

7.7K |