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Power cuts and electric shocks
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tautech:

--- Quote from: blacksheeplogic on March 30, 2020, 12:52:49 am ---
--- Quote from: tautech on March 29, 2020, 10:52:07 pm ---local electrician should also be able to do a megger check as a sanity check that an earth is sound and if not add further pegs or longer ones to get to the watertable.

--- End quote ---

When I had the house rewired they replaced the rod as part of completion. Don't know if that was because of some compliance issue with the existing or just part of their their process when doing this work.

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TBH it's good practice IMHO.
After decades of dealing with stray voltages and non-perfect powerco earthing the PE rods erode and I have seen some pulled that were barely as thick as a pencil for most of their length.
Today we use 12mm hot dipped galv rods where once 20mm/3/4" galv pipe was used and it lasted much much longer.

Come to think of it I must ask my sparky mate if galv pipe for PE still meets regs.  :-//
G7PSK:

--- Quote from: tautech on March 29, 2020, 10:52:07 pm ---@ engrguy42
Sure if the code was followed but the house occupant was still shocked without a clear source then the the powerco's PE or the UK code is flawed.
New installations here are megger tested by the powerco inspector before they are livened and a local electrician should also be able to do a megger check as a sanity check that an earth is sound and if not add further pegs or longer ones to get to the watertable.
In a shower like the OP's wife the source of the shock could come from via a faulty electric hot water heater (improper or broken earth) and best advice would be to return the PE installation to local and check all PE bonding.

Here in NZ, 25mm2 copper droppers down poles to the transformer earth field installations have been stolen so frequently the powerco's now use a copper coated soft steel dropper for the earth and tag label it as 'Not Copper' !

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The engineers who came yesterday Sunday 29th tested the earth bonding with a megger and all tested OK and yes it is up to code to use the company earth, wherever there is a tap from the overhead there is an earthing/grounding on that pole by a metal shoe that fits on the bottom of said pole and there is one on the pole that our power comes from as I saw the pole go in when they fitted a new one nine years ago when we had the pole moved to allow for a garage to be built, the pole is at one end of our property and the feed in is at the other end of the house via about 30 odd meters of underground cable.
mzzj:

--- Quote from: G7PSK on March 29, 2020, 08:07:58 pm ---Every thing is bonded, up until a couple of years ago we had our own earthing via the usual rod in the ground but one day when playing with the scope I realised we no longer had a very good earth so I called an electrician who moved the outgoing earth wire from the rod onto the company incoming earth. We have a pole just 30 meters from the house where our power comes from and at the base of that is a large earthing plate as well an earth line going back along the overheads.

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I'd double-check everything is bonded to equipotential as intented.  Cast iron sewers? water supply?
Really old houses don't have rebar at all  and only new ones have the rebar tied to potential equalization. (last 20 years or so here)
G7PSK:

--- Quote from: mzzj on March 30, 2020, 09:15:17 am ---
--- Quote from: G7PSK on March 29, 2020, 08:07:58 pm ---Every thing is bonded, up until a couple of years ago we had our own earthing via the usual rod in the ground but one day when playing with the scope I realised we no longer had a very good earth so I called an electrician who moved the outgoing earth wire from the rod onto the company incoming earth. We have a pole just 30 meters from the house where our power comes from and at the base of that is a large earthing plate as well an earth line going back along the overheads.

--- End quote ---
I'd double-check everything is bonded to equipotential as intented.  Cast iron sewers? water supply?
Really old houses don't have rebar at all  and only new ones have the rebar tied to potential equalization. (last 20 years or so here)

--- End quote ---

All drains are plastic, the house was rebuilt 20 years ago but the original fabric goes back to the 1800's. The GFD/RCD did not trip The pulse that gave my wife had to have come down the ground line.
tautech:

--- Quote from: G7PSK on March 30, 2020, 10:35:35 am ---The pulse that gave my wife had to have come down the ground line.

--- End quote ---
Or via the hot water cylinder if it's grounding is not up to scratch. Mentioned earlier.
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