Inappropriate ICD Shocks Caused by External Electrical Noise

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote: clip) This would be easy to check with a voltmeter. And to prevent by

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I wouldn't hesitate to run a ground wire as a temporary fix, but how do we know it will carry only 4 or 5 mils? It will carry current 24/7--I would try to figure out how line voltage is getting to the shower head, and fix that.

IIRC in the UK all runs of conductive pipe, typically copper in my experience, have to be earthed to prevent this sort of thing. Having said that I do know a guy that did some DIY and had a section of plastic pipe joining 2 copper piping systems in his house which left one section unearthed and this situation arose where the unearthed section became live, luckily no one was injured just s few minor shocks.

I suspect it was a point-of-use waterheater in the head. Unknown in the US; they are seen elsewhere.

I have seen them in Costa Rica. So they are in the West.

Reading some of the replies - I have this to add.

Hot water lines are very often isolated from the tank to prevent current leakage by dissimilar metals which can eat a tank up.

This isolation can be the issue - if the pipe doesn't dive under a concrete slab or underground.

Remember many places have only air and brackets. Think non-1 family house.

Wire running a length along a pipe - in a race way - it being a single wire e.g. one line of a 220 going to a heater... The other wire is there but not as neat..

The wire induces current in the water pipe and the nominal voltage drop drives a nominal current in the water stream.

Mart> I saw this article in The New England Journal of Medicine. Here is the

Belt and suspenders.

Joe Gwinn

I've seen it and fixed it. No ICD triggers, but the sensitive people felt it in the shower and complained. Took me a while to track it down.

Combinations of idiocy. They had an open Neutral wire and a faked-in Neutral wire headed out to the wellhead. 2 HP submersible.

Now this wouldn't be a problem normally, since the well is 240V and only time there would be a load on the Neutral is when they were working on the well and wanted to use 120V power tools or a light.

But then they tapped off the well for 120V lights and appliances on a semi-permanent residence tent - they saw a white wire and figured they were solid.... And all the unbalanced Neutral current was going through the water to find a ground, and made it up the water line all the way to the shower heads in the permanent building.

Had to re-pull the power lines (including fresh Neutral and Ground) all the way out to the well, and of course the problem vanished.

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I couldn't get much from the website. Who made the ICD in question, please?

They have them here in the US. They're just not well known. Karl

They didn't mention any makes or models. They implied that the problem is general.

Joe Gwinn