# washing machine shocked me



## jeromjenkins (Dec 26, 2013)

Went to take my clothes out of the washer and got shocked. I turned off the circuit, which has a fridge garage door opener, and washing machine on a 20 amp breaker. The house has knob and tube wiring. Opened up the receptacle box which has knob and tube coming in but 12/2 mc as a jumper between the the washer plug and garage door plug. 

The ground in the mc had power going through it, but I am not sure how this is possible. The ground wire wasn't grounded to the box so I pigtailed it and this seemed to fix the issue. Any ideas what caused this? Whoever did the work didn't use anti shorts or mc connectors. They used romex connectors and crushed down the mc. I didn't see any nicks and put the right connectors on.


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## johnny_a (Sep 22, 2013)

Magic


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## wendon (Sep 27, 2010)

jeromjenkins said:


> Went to take my clothes out of the washer and got shocked. I turned off the circuit, which has a fridge garage door opener, and washing machine on a 20 amp breaker. The house has knob and tube wiring. Opened up the receptacle box which has knob and tube coming in but 12/2 mc as a jumper between the the washer plug and garage door plug.
> 
> The ground in the mc had power going through it, but I am not sure how this is possible. The ground wire wasn't grounded to the box so I pigtailed it and this seemed to fix the issue. Any ideas what caused this? Whoever did the work didn't use anti shorts or mc connectors. They used romex connectors and crushed down the mc. I didn't see any nicks and put the right connectors on.


So you're saying the washer was connected to a receptacle with a floating ground, and when you attached the ground the shocking behavior went away? Must be a short in the washer. If the ground was connected, and the floor was concrete, I'd suspect something else.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

If you've got voltage on equipment frames you've got a ground fault. The fact that it went away when you bonded means it's either a high-resistance line fault, or a neutral-to-ground fault (were your hands wet when you touched the washing machine?)

Get out a low-resolution ammeter and start looking for current where it shouldn't be flowing: On cable armor and equipment grounds and pipes. If need be, remove your bonding and careful do voltage checks to a known good equipment-ground. 

Right now it's hidden with a band-aid, and could be a sign of a much more serious problem.


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## jeromjenkins (Dec 26, 2013)

Floor is concrete and the grounds were connect between the 2 receptacles.


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## wendon (Sep 27, 2010)

jeromjenkins said:


> Floor is concrete and the grounds were connect between the 2 receptacles.


These kind of problems can be very tricky. I've seen where the wire going to the well pump had been shorted to the well casing, the casing wasn't bonded and I measured 35 volts from the concrete surface to a ground. The voltage was intermittent but finally figured out it went away when the well shut off. It could even be the favorite. A Loose neutral!!!


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## jeromjenkins (Dec 26, 2013)

There was current flowing on the mc and washing machine. I don't know how much cause I only have a tick tracer. I checked for loose neutral, and didn't see anything.


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## Awg-Dawg (Jan 23, 2007)

Try plugging each appliance into a gfci receptacle.

It will most likely show which one is the culprit.


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Awg-Dawg said:


> Try plugging each appliance into a gfci receptacle....


 Good thinking.


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## CADPoint (Jul 5, 2007)

You sure it wasn't BX ?


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## jeromjenkins (Dec 26, 2013)

Looks like mc


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## jeromjenkins (Dec 26, 2013)

Has a ground wire in it


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

Ouch. ....


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## Vintage Sounds (Oct 23, 2009)

Hold on a second. The washing machine box has K&T coming in and MC leaving to go to the garage door opener box with both ends of the MC ground connected to the receptacles in each box, and the ground was energized? See what happens a when you unplug the garage door opener. The ground fault could be up there.


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## Meadow (Jan 14, 2011)

What Big John said.


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## wendon (Sep 27, 2010)

Vintage Sounds said:


> Hold on a second. The washing machine box has K&T coming in and MC leaving to go to the garage door opener box with both ends of the MC ground connected to the receptacles in each box, and the ground was energized? See what happens a when you unplug the garage door opener. The ground fault could be up there.


I've never seen a ground(ing) conductor on K&T. Must be a bootlegged ground somewhere.


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## jeromjenkins (Dec 26, 2013)

There is no ground on the knob and tube. What they did is just made up the ground to the plugs from the mc. No ground was going back to the panel


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## wendon (Sep 27, 2010)

jeromjenkins said:


> There is no ground on the knob and tube. What they did is just made up the ground to the plugs from the mc. No ground was going back to the panel


So you still have a floating ground. You better install GFCI recepts.


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## Jack Legg (Mar 12, 2014)

jeromjenkins said:


> There was current flowing on the mc and washing machine. I don't know how much cause I only have a tick tracer. I checked for loose neutral, and didn't see anything.


you cant trouble shoot with only a tick tracer


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Jack Legg said:


> you cant trouble shoot with only a tick tracer


 Especially not with a K&T installation. Get a low impedance meter and an amp clamp.


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## Vintage Sounds (Oct 23, 2009)

wendon said:


> I've never seen a ground(ing) conductor on K&T. Must be a bootlegged ground somewhere.


 Yeah agreed, no way there is a K&T ground but I was just saying the garage door opener seems to have a fault which can't clear because it has no path back to the bonding jumper. I can't see how OP stopped the shock condition just by bonding the MC to the box.


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## jeromjenkins (Dec 26, 2013)

I Ann going to put in the gfi. Along with bonding the floating ground to the box. I redid the connections and found a nic on the neutral.


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## bobelectric (Feb 24, 2007)

www.homeinspector.com coming over.


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## wendon (Sep 27, 2010)

jeromjenkins said:


> I Ann going to put in the gfi. Along with bonding the floating ground to the box. I redid the connections and found a nic on the neutral.


All you're going to do by bonding the ground to the box is give the fault current more places to travel. Nothing like the correct grounded/grounding connection back at the main panel to fix your problems. Maybe it's not possible though.


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## Almost always lurkin (Jul 30, 2014)

wendon said:


> So you still have a floating ground. You better install GFCI recepts.


Legally required, too? Extending a 2-wire circuit.


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## RIVETER (Sep 26, 2009)

jeromjenkins said:


> Has a ground wire in it


What size ground wire?


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## iamthor2 (Dec 9, 2014)

My niece was telling me she was getting shocks off the washing machine. She is only short with big tits so when she lent over to get the clothes out here tots touched the washing machine. To overcome this she put a towel on top of the machine and put her tits on that. Problem solved. How long. Bout 6 months. That's when I found out what lolrotf was all about. I found the problem to be a ground wire not connected in the (new) switchboard. Turned out everyone was getting shocks off different appliances on that circuit. 
A simple merger check proved all appliances Okay and the circuit now Okay. 
With no ground connection that circuit had no reference to ground the voltage can float from 0 to full voltage. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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