elctric shock

[momin]

hi everybody. I'm new, so please excuse me if i do any thing wrong. My daughter had electric shock in the shower. I switched off the consumer unit., but it was still alive. so we had to pull her off the chrome hose which she was grabbing. we had a shared loop from our next door neighbour. He had some work done a few times previously a year ago. There was no marking on his workers van. we called the ambulance and she was taken to hospital. the electricity board was also called. they took out the main 60 amps fuse, but the radiators and pipes were still alive. he called in more senior electrician from the board. they too had never ever come across such a situation. the managers were called in as well. my loop was coming from next door. they went in. as soon as they put their meter to test, there was a big bang and a flash. when asked, what happened, the electricians said that my earth cable was hanging loose. the board , on our insistence, wrote to the neighbour to assist them in their investigations and to name the person who carried out his work. He has not responded. it is 6 months now. the board says they do NOT have any remit or power to force him. So what do i do now. Please, please advise asap.

 

[gorilla]

Thanks gorilla. Should I make a claim again the neighbour? Or should it be against the electricity board.

You would initially need to claim your neighbour as from what you have said it was a fault within their property/electrical system that caused it.

This would be enough to kick your neighbour up the backside to disclose who the electrician was and also expose through investigation who was fully to blame.

 

[Yooj]

I assume by DNO u mean the electricity board.

Yes

Should I sue the board OR the neighbor........

So who do I sue. As gorilla suggested to sue the neighbor under accident claim. Thanks please advice further.

Momin, The advice that I am able to provide extends to what I know with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I get it wrong.

However, the key thing is that this knowledge is imparted in good faith, and to the best of my knowledge.

On this site, it generally extends to advice relating directly to electrical engineering, and therefore I do not think that I am able to provide you with guidance as to who you should sue, simply because this is outside of my expertise, and probably outside the expertise of the majority of members on here. I did provide you with my recommendations as to whom you need to speak to, i.e. Citizens Advice and then probably a Lawyer.

Have no mistake, that what you will need to prove in order to obtain a level of satisfaction in this matter will be a most time-consuming and costly process, and one which could very well leave you out of pocket, and without a resolution which you are satisfied with.

So I wish you well in getting to a satisfactory resolution, and please do keep us informed of progress and the route you decide to take and any outcome, since these type of things make us as a profession think about safety which is no bad thing.

Yooj

 

[d1scv]

40+ years as a sparks. And I need direction.
How in the world- CU main switch off, 60 amp fuse out, main earth open circuit- but installation still live?
And how could next door be liable for this?

And then the board go in and get a 'flash/ bang' ??

 

[Yooj]

40+ years as a sparks. And I need direction.
How in the world- CU main switch off, 60 amp fuse out, main earth open circuit- but installation still live?
And how could next door be liable for this?

And then the board go in and get a 'flash/ bang' ??

If I were to have an educated guess, then I would say that the install to both Momins and his neighbours property was PME. The supply side neutral was broken to his neighbours house...This means that his neighbours house is effectively acting like a TT system, with the Neutral retun now going to true earth using anything extraneous as the return path, effectively making anything extraneous live.

If the neutral is broken, then any earth connection, i.e. Main Earth, Main Bonding are essentially innefective since these are really connected to the supply neutral in a PME, and hence the reason why the Main Earth and Main Bonding sizes are very important in PME systems, and why DNO sometimes frown upon exporting PME outside the main equipotential zone.

Yooj

 

[d1scv]

Yooj, Reckon you are on the money here. The DP main switch must have remained on in the panic.
I know from experience of running sub mains to Portacabin type class rooms with a PME origin.
I exported the earth. NIC made me insulate the earth and TT the classroom-there and then!

 

[momin]

40+ years as a sparks. And I need direction.
How in the world- CU main switch off, 60 amp fuse out, main earth open circuit- but installation still live?
And how could next door be liable for this?

And then the board go in and get a 'flash/ bang' ??

Exactly..This is the reason I want to know from the board. the fault was outside our house. Nothing in our house was faulty. the board gave 2 possibilities. Either (1) the underground cable was damaged. I hardly believe this and is very unlikely or (2) the earth cable of ours which was next door is the cause because it was loose as admitted by the board. and as mentioned before the neighbour had some work done on 2 different occasions on his CU prior to the accident.

 

[acvc]

Sorry to hear about your daughter's bad experience momin.

I've got one point:

whether this was a broken neutral/earth in a pme context, or a shared/looped earth between neighbouring dwellings, or both .... it's the DNO's responsibilty to provide an (external) earth path for every installation. If that path was broken due to a broken neutral then the liability is theirs; similarly, if an installation is without an earth path because it it shared with an adjacent installation and disconnected there (for maintenance or modification of that installation), it's still the DNO's responsibility.

Maybe a solicitor would be more appropriate than an electrician in this context.

 

[kung]

The DNO will always maintain that its not their responsibilty to provide an earth if they do its out of good will. what a crock !

 

[Yooj]

Yooj, Reckon you are on the money here. The DP main switch must have remained on in the panic.
I know from experience of running sub mains to Portacabin type class rooms with a PME origin.
I exported the earth. NIC made me insulate the earth and TT the classroom-there and then!

I am wondering whether the spark who did the work on the neighbours house was getting some funny readings when he was testing the installation due to a broken neutral (total supposition on my part however...we no more know it was a PME supply, than a broken neutral). He could well have removed the main earth that went to Momins house and the readings he was getting then could have potentially been ok...Again, supposition, and without seeing the install with my own eyes, then this is just a hypothesis. I will also hazard a guess that there is also continuity between Momin's and his neighbours pipework...maybe through a shared metallic gas and/or water supply pipework, which acted as the neutral return path due to a neutral supply break.

Some DNO's and in fact the IET (IEE) recommend that an earth spike can be installed on PME supplies to reduce the touch voltage on extraneouse metallic parts in the event of a neutral open-circuit supply side.

See attached file.

Exactly..This is the reason I want to know from the board. the fault was outside our house. Nothing in our house was faulty. the board gave 2 possibilities. Either (1) the underground cable was damaged. I hardly believe this and is very unlikely

Unlikely, yes...impossible no...Maybe this is the reason that the DNO do not want to dig up the old supply, as this could maybe prove that it was a broken neutral? I have heard of several cases of PME neutral breaks...some of which go undetected for years, since the consumers house has very good earthing properties from metallic services. These only came to light when utility supplies were changed to plastic, and thus effectively removing the return path.

or (2) the earth cable of ours which was next door is the cause because it was loose as admitted by the board. and as mentioned before the neighbour had some work done on 2 different occasions on his CU prior to the accident.

The likelyhood is that the big flash and bang when the DNO reconnected the earth was because there was a load on the main-earth due to a broken neutral. Reconnecting it just caused a flash-over arc.

Sorry to hear about your daughter's bad experience momin.

I've got one point:

whether this was a broken neutral/earth in a pme context, or a shared/looped earth between neighbouring dwellings, or both .... it's the DNO's responsibilty to provide an (external) earth path for every installation. If that path was broken due to a broken neutral then the liability is theirs; similarly, if an installation is without an earth path because it it shared with an adjacent installation and disconnected there (for maintenance or modification of that installation), it's still the DNO's responsibility.

Maybe a solicitor would be more appropriate than an electrician in this context.

The DNO will always maintain that its not their responsibilty to provide an earth if they do its out of good will. what a crock !

From the ESQCR:
**************************************
Equipment on a consumer's premises
24. - (4) Unless he can reasonably conclude that it is inappropriate for reasons of safety, a distributor shall, when providing a new connection at low voltage, make available his supply neutral conductor or, if appropriate, the protective conductor of his network for connection to the protective conductor of the consumer's installation.

Connections to installations or to other networks
25. - (1) No person shall make or alter a connection from a distributor's network to a consumer's installation, a street electrical fixture or to another distributor's network without that distributor's consent, unless such consent has been unreasonably withheld.

***************************************

24. states that the neutral/earth shold have been available...I bet this is why the DNO have now made sure that you have your own supply and earth. I would also be interested to know whether the DNO provided the neighbour with a new supply also.

25. As any electrician knows, touching DNO equipement is a no-no...However, how did the electrician working on the neighbours installation know that the earth which was disconnected, was actually the main earth for Momin's house. Was it suitably labelled? As far as he was concerned it was probably a redundant CPC or bonding conductor maybe. And as mentioned before, it might well have screwed up the test readings when connected, due to a broken neutral. Or, if there was not a broken neutral at the time of the work carried out, and it appeared to be just a redundant cable, then it might have just been left disconnected.

All the above adds up to nothing really, as it is just a hypothesis...however, the real questions that I would be asking, would be to the DNO in terms of why was the Main Earth to Momin's terminated in the neighbours house, and if there was a broken neutral, then both of these factors then were contributory to his daughters electrocution.

Yooj

 

[d1scv]

Yooj, 41+ years Sparky- and every day I find something I didn't know!
Supplement a PME with a spike;

How would you show the earthing arrangement on paper. TNC/S- TT- or both?

Would you need to put a 100ma main switch at the front to make the TT system valid if used?

 

[Yooj]

I would say that the supply would be a PME still, and you just note the spike on the cert...All the spike is doing is acting like the metallic utilities pipework, but providing a further return path in the eventuality of a neutral supply O/C.

I don't think that an RCD would be required in this case.

Yooj

 

[Des 56]

Yooj, 41+ years Sparky- and every day I find something I didn't know!
Supplement a PME with a spike;

How would you show the earthing arrangement on paper. TNC/S- TT- or both?

Would you need to put a 100ma main switch at the front to make the TT system valid if used?

As Yooj stated,the system earth would still be TNC-S The earth spike being a suuplementary earth for the line spiked neutral,this has been a recomendation of the IET for these installations for improved safety

It may have prevented the daughter from having the shock whatever the system fault turned out to be

 

[Yooj]

Hi Des56, all the posts I read of yours leads me to think that you provide a good voice of reason....in light of this, what do you make of the situation that has occured in this installation, as for me, something just does not appear to add up, and I cannot put my finger on it.

Yooj

 

[Des 56]

It would be difficult for anyone to give a remote assessment of what went on,we can all only use the little information and try to fill in the blanks
For me i suspect a lot of covering your ar--e as gone on and if anything something extra nauhty as gone on,it would be nigh on impossible to show any negligence

I think,disconnected main earth,shared pipework becomes live through fault,no earth connection of these pipes other than through the water because of no effective bonding next door,perhaps no rcd ,the fault from next door remains until discharged through the daughter touching the charged pipes and something earthy
If it was a fault or ineffective bonding in his own house,his RCd would have seen it bonding or no bonding,as it was next doors fault,no imbalance and relying on next doors protection,which may not have existed
The dis connected main earth being the big tomatoe issue

Forgot this
I cant see the loss of a supply neutral causing the problem,because the systems were still in use via earth or neutral whichever,so,
Fuse removed from his house,pipes still live,earth reconnected next door, big flash as the live earth fault has now got a different route

Did I hear you say

What a load of bulll,sorry guesswork

 

[Yooj]

Yep, just a load of hypothesis

I don't think we will ever know what happened for sure...though I firmly beleive that it was a catalogue of events rather than a single thing which caused it...

Plenty seems to have been swept under the carpet though.

Shame we will not know for sure, as this would have been a really good case-study to get my teeth into.

Yooj