Shocking Surprise

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Jeff Seighman

Jeff Seighman

aka jeffnmo
Joined
Jan 19, 2020
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Location
South Carolina
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Had a shocking surprise today. I was filling the bird bath and wound up the hose when done, touched the bumper on the 5th wheel and got a shock, I got my meter out and found the frame sending 110 to the ground, that plug is an extension I had to buy to reach power. I'm glad I was wearing my tennies, might have been worse!
 
How in heck did it get that way? Overloaded? Lord.

"When I was a kid" we had a house/ basement, the house plumbing was all galvanized. But where the well came in the pipe ended just outside the house and transitioned to black plastic from the well. So, "there was not much" of a ground. The dryer, washer, water tank, and range all had separate raggedy ground wires bonded to the water pipe. One day we started getting "tingled" by the outdoor faucets on the house.

I was pretty young then, and finally Dad dug into things and turns out a burner in the range was "leaking" and causing the drain. He had first REALLY grounded the water piping LOL and all that did was to cause the electric meter to speed up!!!

This house, by the way, was built in late 30's and had no "3rd wire" grounded outlets
 
Next time put your tongue on it to see if it can get in any juice flowing through there... Meters are overrated...
:poke:...:D...
 
I had that connection under the 5th wheel up off the ground. The fella I rent the property from, who also set everything up and works on RV's, 5th wheels and campers said it happens, my neighbor who has been here a few years longer than me hasn't had any problems, he has a single cord and that's what I have now.
 
Joey4speed said:
Exposed to water, im guessing.
GFCI shouldn't allow that.
Click to expand...
Very true

LOL I REALLY got my a $$ handed to me by a GFCI. This was a house under construction, fed by nothing but 2 or 3 extension cords off a temp power pole all fed from GFCI

When I was in HVAC/R there was a constant struggle between the owner and contractors. The contractors often wanted the furnace going to provide heat and we (rightfully) did NOT because of construction dirt and debri getting into the furnace. The contractors would threaten to not hire us "next time" and so that is the push/ pull

So this was a big house, awful, dark, near dusk, cold wet winter day, the site was muddy, snowy, a mess. I'm working in poor light down at the furnace, cold, getting dark, running out of time. Wanting to get it fired. It's LPG, out of town, and the temp power pole.

So I'm trying to even determine if there's a circuit live, that I can use. I had a little LED tester that only drew a few milliamps to operate, but it turns out it was enough to trip a GFCI. I was arguing with this, and checked with the tester on a wire, and stabbed the other probe to the furnace case. "CLICK" no lights. WTF?? (GFCI was fairly new back then, and I did not realize what happened

So I wade through the mud and snow out to the power pole hundreds of feet away, to find that the GFCI had tripped. AND THEN SOMEHOW MANAGED TO DO THAT AGAIN. So ANOTHER LONG ROUND TRIP to the pole and back!!!

By the way, if a furnace ate a blower in the first couple years, and showed signs of sheet rock dust, we sent the bill to the building contractor!!!
 
Nothing tripped, everything inside still worked. I don't know how long it was like that! I am not an electrician, I know just enough to be dangerous. The guy I rent the property from is coming out to look deeper into it.
 
I would say if the outlet is a GFCI, it is defective or mis-wired, and if not, install one.

"How they work"

The basics of GFCI are exactly what you experienced---to prevent a shock from power to ground.

They do NOT prevent a shock from a hot wire to neutral, if you are on an insulated AKA dry wood floor. The GFCI senses balance/ imbalance. When properly operating, the current flows from the hot side back to the neutral, and "is balanced." But current to ground forms an IMbalance and causes the thing to trip.

In other words when you touched the vehicle, a GFCI should have tripped. In fact, "leakage" through steel belt tires should often be enough to trip one as well, morning dew and so on
 
I now if I don’t keep that ugly green stuff off my adapter plug I have all kinds of issues. I bought a 30 amp receptacle to put outside so I can plug straight in but haven’t wired it in yet.
 
My setup is 30 amp to, all connections have dielectric grease on them now. The major problem here is the high humidity, turns anything copper green in a heartbeat.
 
If the property is on a well, there may be a lot of iron in the water. Sometimes, that will build up on the heating element in the water heater and start shorting out to the tank of the water heater, which is tied to the frame. It will give just enough voltage to make you feel a tingle, but not enough at that point to trip the breaker on the water heater. If you still feel it even with the new cord, flip the breaker off that feeds the water heater and see if it goes away. Hopefully, it was just the fubared power cord.
 
I should say I put inline sediment and carbon filters and looking at the sediment filter there is plenty of iron in the water.
 
If you can get to your water heater pretty easy, it might be a good idea to see if you can get to the electric heating element on it to change it. It probably works on gas too, but that costs too much anymore. It might not hurt to have a spare electric element on hand if there is a lot of iron in the water, and it does mess it up. We used to have a 5th wheel, and the water heater element was right there when you opened the outside compartment door.
 
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