Tingle in shower - dodgy electrics ?

[Jethro]

Hi all,

recently had to use a (hot water tank fed) shower at a caravan site, and experienced a definite tingle when I touched the pipework. Informed site manager, and suggested he call an electrician, which he did. Alledgedly nothing was found ("it could have been static" the site manager said !!!!!!).

I imagine this is some earth fault, as I was completing a circuit with the waste grille, and presumably earth.

I was curious as to how dangerous this could have been ... conceiveably if there was a full circuit, then I would have got 240V along my arm and down my torso ? Nasty ? Fatal ?

[Andrew Gabriel]

Shower faults are probably more likely to be fatal than in most other appliances. Generally, you need two faults before something can become live and potentially fatal. This might for example be 1) missing earth bonding, and

2) and earth leakage.

[Colin Wilson]

I'm not sure i'd be happy with this explanation - if it was a static caravan site, they'd still be classed as portable, and therefore probably wouldn't have an incoming earth from the REC (aka it's down to the site to provide their own). Same might apply if the site has, or is adjacent to a farm with livestock, or fed from the same overhead line.

It sounds like they need to sink a sheload of earth rods to get it down to something usable (can be a pain near the seaside, it's great when the tide is in, and sh*te when the tide goes out), and use RCD protected consumer units.

If you know who the REC was for the area, i'd be tempted to call it in as an electric shocks call for their shift electricians to check out, at least that way, they'll be able to clarify whether an earth is provided to the owner of the site. Either that, or the HSE themselves.

Sounds like there's definitely a lack of cross-bonding and / or earth provision in its' entirety, and a failure to protect leakage via any other means.

Could be - although a hand-to-hand connection is generally the best method I believe...

[Pete Verdon]

Since the shower is fed from a tank, I had assumed it was in an ablutions block rather than in an actual van. Can't really imagine a caravan, static or mobile, with a header tank on the roof :-)

Pete

[Colin Wilson]

I was referring to the type of premises / site, which is relevant to whether the supply was provided with an earth or not.

Portable buildings are not generally given an earth, and it's up to the site owner to arrange their own protection arrangements.

Factor in that they might have been off an overhead line with no earth provided anyway...

[Jethro]

Sorry, the manager was saying the electrician (who I didn't meet) was claiming it was static *electricity* (which I immediately thought was a crock). The shower block was a proper brick-built building. And the site was in landlocked Staffordshire ....