electrified sink

Sam Vimes

thought i'd share this little incident with you all. i was replacing a plug socket in my kitchen earlier that had broken through wear. i didn't remember exactly how it had been wired after removing the old one but there's two socket points there and i had two neutral wires (blue), two earths (green and yellow) and two lives (brown). i also had an extra wire. i didn't know what it was for but it was brown so i just stuck it in with the rest of the live wires.

so it was working again and i was watching the tv and leaning on the counter, touching the sink slightly. i kept feeling like i was getting hairs caught in the corner of the sink unit or something like that because i kept feeling a sting. but then i touched a different part of the sink and felt the sting there too. turns out the extra wire was a ground for the sink and it now had 230 volts running through it. could've easily killed one of my family.

anyway, just thought i'd share

humbert

'twas some pillock that wired it in the first place! but the metal pipes from the sink go into the ground I would think, which is why there wasn't too much of a shock when you touched it.

Mossy Monk

Commander Vimes wrote:

turns out the extra wire was a ground for the sink and it now had 230 volts running through it. could've easily killed one of my family.

anyway, just thought i'd share

jesus, very lucky no one got hurt

The Real B-man

Not Being bad or anything but you should have checked if it was live! but it should have being earthed with the correct colour wire Green, Green/Yellow in the first place

glad to know nobody was hurt

lilrayosunshine

Ha.. that's like something I'd do!

glad no one got hurt though!

Sam Vimes

The Real B-man wrote:

Not Being bad or anything but you should have checked if it was live! but it should have being earthed with the correct colour wire Green, Green/Yellow in the first place

glad to know nobody was hurt

i don't have a voltmeter. i thought it would be safe to assume a qualified electrician could wire my house properly. forgot this is ireland, the land of the port tunnel (leaks) and the national aquatic centre (leaks)

Wishbone Ash

Commander Vimes wrote:

forgot this is ireland, the land of the port tunnel (leaks)

Japanese Contractor though!

Sparky

Your sink was local bonded to the nearest socket.
The wire should have been either green, green/yellow.

In normal cases, your RCD would have tripped, but somewhere along the line in your house, some copper pipes are not bonded to earth.

This always poses the problem when new houses are fully plumbed in qualpex (plastic piping), or somewhere a coupling is in plastic.

RECI rules allows for localized bonding, but next time always have a good check on where you connect wires.
If there is 2 blues 2 browns and 2 earths and an extra wire, firstly assume the extra wire is an earth and check fully (but don't connect). There will never be a need for an extra brown or even blue without a corresponding brown or blue.

Btw, the sparks was an idiot. Earth marked as brown...

Your lucky it was just the sink, chances are that if your house is fully plumbed in copper, that all other sinks, rads etc were live too. I've seen cases and even reports of death in the shower due to this.
Not nice at all.

Owen

I'm just in here to say "Electrified Sink" would be a great name for a band!

KdjaCL

Commander Vimes wrote:

i don't have a voltmeter. i thought it would be safe to assume a qualified electrician could wire my house properly. forgot this is ireland, the land of the port tunnel (leaks) and the national aquatic centre (leaks)

Do you have a fusebox? The one that turns off power to certain areas? next time you should get a partly blind retarded electrician he would have done a better job than you.

Yeah ireland alright someone ****s up nearly kills someone and blames someone else.

kdjac

pickarooney

Sounds lik every single shower in South America, tbh.

Sam Vimes

KdjaCL wrote:

Do you have a fusebox? The one that turns off power to certain areas? next time you should get a partly blind retarded electrician he would have done a better job than you.

kdjac

are you joking? i do have a fusebox and it was disconnected while i was putting the socket in but i had finished and so i reconnected it....no?

KdjaCL wrote:

Yeah ireland alright someone ****s up nearly kills someone and blames someone else.

yes indeed the person who ****ed up and nearly killed someone was the electrician who likes to label his earth with brown wires. yes i could have gone and bought a voltmeter but do you honestly not think brown=live was not a safe assumption to make?

Dyr

electrified sink eh? this would be a great plot device for a murder mystery

Sparky

I don't think the OP would be stupid enough now to operate on a live circuit.

Well he'll be in for a shock otherwise.

nobodythere

Out of curiousity, if you were to test it with a voltmeter - how would you connect it? Would you need to put some sort of resistor in between it?

Sparky

No. The voltmeter itself is a resistance.

Sam Vimes

Spanky-s wrote:

I don't think the OP would be stupid enough now to operate on a live circuit.

Well he'll be in for a shock otherwise.

if i was i'd be posting from beyond the grave about now

Wishbone Ash

Commander Vimes wrote:

if i was i'd be posting from beyond the grave about now

Jesus, I don't think they would have interred you that quickly!

peasant

stupid, ignorant question ...

Why does a sink have to be grounded / earthed in the first place ??

Wishbone Ash

peasant wrote:

stupid, ignorant question ...

Why does a sink have to be grounded / earthed in the first place ??

Metal? (i.e. a conductor of electricity)

rogue-entity

That makes no sense unless your water pipes are plastic. If you had a copper water pipe, then the second you restored the power, bang, you would blow the fuse/tripswitch as the electricity would run straight to the earth via the copper water pipes. I would bet the only reason you didnt get a shock is that you were insulated and the current couldnt go from the metal sink to the ground though you, that is why you only got a tingle and not 230V.

Sparky

peasant wrote:

stupid, ignorant question ...

Why does a sink have to be grounded / earthed in the first place ??

Kitchen is a zone 1 area. Sinks and rads must be locally bonded.

rogue-entity wrote:

That makes no sense unless your water pipes are plastic. If you had a copper water pipe, then the second you restored the power, bang, you would blow the fuse/tripswitch as the electricity would run straight to the earth via the copper water pipes. I would bet the only reason you didnt get a shock is that you were insulated and the current couldnt go from the metal sink to the ground though you, that is why you only got a tingle and not 230V.

Exactly, but plastic pipes do pose a problem in new houses.
Generally the localized bonding is there for if a kettle lead accidentally broke and touched the sink, or even if a dishwasher feed happened to be routed a certain way that over time the cable broke and shorted against the sink. Or in many cases your wife decided to murder you by throwing the toaster into the sink, while you done the dishes.
Removing of the cable and putting it into the live terminal of the socket happens once every 20,000 times maybe, but having the bonding earth brown does not help either. You can't fault the OP as such as he was following colour code.
Noting down what you remove and taking time are tips to remember when dealing with electricity.

fred funk }{

In future get a sparks to do it, It baffles me the amount of times people do DIY electrical work when they haven't a bog what there doing.

A sparks would have noticed the extra 'brown' and realised that it wasn't a live. Your lucky nobody was killed and it would have been your fault, sorry if that sounds harsh but you should have got a sparks in.

Sam Vimes

fred funk }{ wrote:

In future get a sparks to do it, It baffles me the amount of times people do DIY electrical work when they haven't a bog what there doing.

A sparks would have noticed the extra 'brown' and realised that it wasn't a live. Your lucky nobody was killed and it would have been your fault, sorry if that sounds harsh but you should have got a sparks in.

i'm in the final year of an electronic engineering degree. not quite the same area of expertise but i thought i could handle it. and remember it was a sparks that put it in in the first place

The_Minister

Now I'm definately not getting that metal toilet.

fred funk }{

Commander Vimes wrote:

i'm in the final year of an electronic engineering degree. not quite the same area of expertise but i thought i could handle it. and remember it was a sparks that put it in in the first place

The original sparks was a cowboy. That doesn't excuse your error. When you unwired the original socket you should have noticed that the extra 'brown' was wired into the earth and not in with the other two lives.

If you had got a competent electrician he would have put a new green/yellow sleeve over the earth wire and rewired it correctly.

Your lucky and I'd take it as a lesson learnt.

Random

You've relabeled the cable now, right? So the next person, or the next time you do it the same mistake isn't made?

And those clowns in the Irish Electrical peoples guild .. or whatever they call it

Sparky

ciaranfo wrote:

And those clowns in the Irish Electrical peoples guild .. or whatever they call it

What?

If the sparks is reci registered, you can report them and they will be investigated.

Also some readers should have a look here if they are anyway interested in electrical safety.
http://www.etci.ie/safety/faq.html

Gaspode

fred funk }{ wrote:

In future get a sparks to do it, It baffles me the amount of times people do DIY electrical work when they haven't a bog what there doing.

It baffles me the amount of supposedly professional, RECI registered sparks who havent a bog what they're doing!

Replacing the socket is an easy DIY job, but the OP was a little careless not to mark or make a note of whats wires were where.
But Hey you know, we're all humans. And some of us might be dead slightly smouldering humans sometimes as a result.

Sam Vimes

Spanky-s wrote:

What?

If the sparks is reci registered, you can report them and they will be investigated.

Also some readers should have a look here if they are anyway interested in electrical safety.
http://www.etci.ie/safety/faq.html

the house is nearly 30 years old, he may be dead. and judging by his wiring skills he probebly is

11.3 SECONDS

As far as I know the "earth" for a sink is really intended to be one element of bonding so that all metalwork like pipes and sinks in the house are at the same electrical potential. Difference in electrical potential between two points is what makes current flow !

You probably did not get the full 230 volts sting either by the way as some of the force was probably drained to earth if there were copper pipes connected to the sink and they were grounded in turn. Not so where the pipes are polythene of course.

Moral of the story. If a wire is intended for earthing purposes make sure you put a green and yellow stripy covering on it for avoidance of doubt on the part of the next guy in another 30 years time.

The guys in the DIY thread would love this one.

Incidentally, this sounds like an old installation which has had bits added to it over time and which may be why no fuses blew or breakers tripped when power was applied to the sink. In fact the more I think about it the surer I am that your system is not bonded as this would not have happened otherwise. Might be worth a survey by someone reputable.

Finally, just remember that although mains electricity is delivered at low pressure (230 volts) the current you can draw is heavy enough to kill a human being.

Sparky

Bang on!

Remember kids. Volts shock (standard domestic now, not like 20,000+), amps kill.

Also amp on boards kills too.

rogue-entity

Spanky-s wrote:

Remember kids. Volts shock (standard domestic now, not like 20,000+), amps kill.

Also amp on boards kills too.

It only takes 6mA across the heart to stop it beating, that is what kills you.



I will say this again, if the sink was live, then it could not have been grounded at all. If there was a connection between the sink and the earth, then what would have happened is the currant would surge and blow the lowest-rated fuse on the circuit, if it wasnt the ring-main fuse, it would be the main fuse or the ESB Service Fuse. Either way the sink wouldnt be live for much longer, presenting no danger which is why we have earth cables in the first place What I suspect happened is that the OP was insulated and the currant couldnt flow through his body, but there was enough of a voltage to give him that tingle. If anyone else had come in contact with the sink, they could have been killed.

Personally, I would rather do as much of the work myself using the proper tools and following the proper wiring codes (such as using the right thickness of cable and fuse ratings) myself then pay someone else to do it. If I am unsure, then obviously I call the sparks and let them do it, but 99% of the time, you can do it yourself.

Victor

Spanky-s wrote:

If there is 2 blues 2 browns and 2 earths and an extra wire, firstly assume the extra wire is an earth and check fully (but don't connect).

First, assume it is live. :eek:

Lump

Moron