An oddity from the distant past.

[Evans Electric]

Supervisor of a firm I worked for many years ago kept being called to a lady's hairdressers , occasionally getting shocks & tingles from equipment  etc.   

Rented property on 1st floor , this phenomenon kept recurring .

Eventually traced to a lead sink waste pipe going outside to a hopper head on a downpipe which shared with next door's plumbing .    Next door had serious earthing problems apparently and caused problems in the hairdressers only when both properties released water from sinks and it mixed at the hopper head.    

 

[binky]

living in that house must have been fun

 

[ProDave]

What was the "solution"?  Earth the lead waste pipe? Or replace it with plastic?

Bring back an earth bond on metal sink units in the next amd?
 

 

[Tony S]

Makes a total mockery of the belief RCD’s are the answer to all earthing problems.

I had the same in my own house. Anything between 5A and 35A, depending on the time of day, coming in through the lead water pipe and going out to the gas pipe and earth nest.

A N→E fault in a neighbours house combined with a high resistance neutral on the DNO’s OH line feeding the street. It took the DNO hours to sort out, I found the N→E fault, then the hunt was on for the high resistance neutral.

The next week I was fitting upfront RCD’s to every house in the street. No I didn’t make a profit from it, I put several pounds on due to being force fed sandwiches, pies, cakes along with gallons of tea.

 

[Evans Electric]

What was the "solution"?  Earth the lead waste pipe? Or replace it with plastic?

Bring back an earth bond on metal sink units in the next amd?
 

I'm not sure what the outcome was TBH.   I remember him saying the people next door wouldn't co-operate , landlord wouldn't co-operate  so he reported it as an unsafe installation to the , then Electricity Board .  I think the network earth had failed too which is not uncommon in the Midlands.