Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Jan 16, 2011 10:54 pm Late this arvo, as I was turning off the pool pump, I received a nasty electric shock. After spending a few hours in A&E, i'm very fortunate to be home. Neither of the two RCDs flicked into action. Tomorrow I am having an electrician around to check everything, but I must admit I do not understand how and why it happened. More importantly what do I need to do to prevent it from happening again. Can anyone explain to me of what I did? I admit that I was very stupidly not wearing shoes and had been in the pool 10 mins earlier. My clothes were still wettish but my skin was dryish. (37 degrees). I simply tried to flick the pool pump switch off. (In the last 10 mins I had turned it off and on as I was trying to repair the Kreepy Krauly and I had had no problems.) We have only had the house for 3 days, so everything is a little new to us. (Old house 1980s.) All the pool equipment sits on a garden bed made up of sticks, leaves and sand. Any ideas would be great - should the pool equipment be placed elsewhere? Should I use a big fat rubber spoon to turn in on and off? I intent to replace the equipment asap....just waiting until someone has a vacancy. TIA F. Re: Pools and Electric Shocks 2Jan 17, 2011 2:14 pm I am no electrician. My understanding is the RCD detects current flow to EARTH.,.. if you had LIVE connected to NEUTRAL (via your body), the RCD would not work. So maybe you had a short across to Neutral. The rule I remember is (apart from not having wet bare feet) keep one hand in your pocket when you are around electrical stuff - the greatest danger is that it passes from one hand through your body to the other hand. That's a direct path through the heart. But hopefully a sparkie gives a better answer. Ed "ECOECO" At 'EcoEco', we design windows, we design the best windows, we do it for you, so that when you’re happy we are happy. Tel. 1800 326 326 Re: Pools and Electric Shocks 3Jan 17, 2011 9:07 pm They detect a difference from the current flowing in to the current flowing out as they should be exactly the same any difference should trip the RCD as it is obviously going somewhere its not meant to. Re: Pools and Electric Shocks 4Jan 17, 2011 11:35 pm kassan1973 They detect a difference from the current flowing in to the current flowing out as they should be exactly the same any difference should trip the RCD as it is obviously going somewhere its not meant to. I may be wrong... but as I understand it, if the current flows through your body from the LIVE to NEUTRAL then the RCD won't trip - but you will get a shock. It will only trip if the current flows to earth, as in if you held a water pipe in one hand and either the LIVE or NEUTRAL (powered ON, for NEUTRAL) in the other. Ed "ECOECO" At 'EcoEco', we design windows, we design the best windows, we do it for you, so that when you’re happy we are happy. Tel. 1800 326 326 6 2992 Hi everyone! This is my first time posting here, and I'm looking for some advice regarding my house construction project in North Kellyville. I… 0 4697 Hi all. I'm thinking of installing an electric gate in front of this street front villa (link below). The gate would be between the bush on the left and the letter box on… 0 1768 |