# Poll: Have you ever been shocked through your work boots/shoes?



## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

only when my boots were wet and I stepped too close to a welding cable.


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## millelec (Nov 20, 2010)

wildleg said:


> only when my boots were wet and I stepped too close to a welding cable.


 wet roof, nicked welding cable also.


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## Cletis (Aug 20, 2010)

I did once when I didnt know I had a huge tac through my sole, damp/wet socks and touched utility wires


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## rexowner (Apr 12, 2008)

Shocked wiring a new subpanel in a garage remodel. I was stupid
and believed the feeders were left off from the previous day. I
was wearing my regular rubber-soled work boots.


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## LARMGUY (Aug 22, 2010)

Many times by welding cables.

A few times on a fiberglass ladder touching a grid for ceiling tile too. Splain that!


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## 360max (Jun 10, 2011)

Cletis said:


> I did once when I didnt know I had a huge tac through my sole, damp/wet socks and touched utility wires


...all while carrying tools through the Congo?


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## 220/221 (Sep 25, 2007)

You guys should start wearing tennis shoes :thumbup:

And, things like nails in your boots, standing in water and voltage over 120 don't count.

And....I'm also puzzled why anyone would wear conductive footwear while doing hot work??? :jester: If I ever got shocked thru my footwear, it would be the last time it wore it.

If you have been shocked, I'd really like to hear the *details.* so I can understand how 1/2" of rubber on your boots doesn't insulate you but 1/4" on my tennis shoes works for me.



.


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## chewy (May 9, 2010)

I'm extra careful wearing my caulked loggers in the barn when theres extension leads laying around.


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## Shockdoc (Mar 4, 2010)

chewy said:


> I'm extra careful wearing my caulked loggers in the barn when theres extension leads laying around.


Now those are "kick azz" soles.


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## usair1 (Mar 31, 2013)

220/221 said:


> You guys should start wearing tennis shoes :thumbup:
> 
> And, things like nails in your boots, standing in water and voltage over 120 don't count.
> 
> ...


 Yes I have been shocked by 120v wearing tennis shoes. Most likely due to the fact they were old shoes and possible bad spots from stepping on debrie.


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## guest (Feb 21, 2009)

I am going to expand on my explanation of WHY it is possible by pasting in excerpts of my reply to 220/221 in the original thread: 



mxslick said:


> ALL rubber compounds have trace elements that are conductive, and vulcanized rubber (i.e. soles) have trace amounts of carbon. (A nicely conductive substance.)
> 
> If you look up insulating properties of materials any electrical engineering book will tell you there is no such thing as a "perfect" insulator, that ALL items have a degree of conductivity. Rubber is far from the most insulating material out there, it is high up on the scale but it is not the top of the chart. Which leads to:
> 
> ...


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## Bipeflier (Jan 16, 2013)

Not if you are wearing the required, properly rated, rubber insulating gloves.


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## Mshea (Jan 17, 2011)

In Canada Electrical workers are required to wear dielectric rated footwear with a steel shank and steel toes.
Some prefer tennis shoes.

I did touch the secondary of a high voltage transformer in an electrostatic air cleaner around 1983. Between me and ground was a neon tester rated at 600 volts, leather gloves, 5 feet of dry broom handle and my regular work boots (not rated electrically). None of the added insulation prevented the 13 to 15,000 volts from the accompanying shock


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## millelec (Nov 20, 2010)

Mshea said:


> In Canada Electrical workers are required to wear dielectric rated footwear with a steel shank and steel toes.
> Some prefer tennis shoes.
> 
> I did touch the secondary of a high voltage transformer in an electrostatic air cleaner around 1983. Between me and ground was a neon tester rated at 600 volts, leather gloves, 5 feet of dry broom handily and my regular work boots (not rated electrically). None of the added insulation prevented the 13 to 15,000 volts from the accompanying shock


worst shock I ever received was electrostatic air cleaner power supply.


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## sparky970 (Mar 19, 2008)

I have not. In almost 20 yrs, I have only got tickled twice by 120Vac, once by 125Vdc, and 2 or 3 times by 300Vdc


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## chrisfnl (Sep 13, 2010)

Mshea said:


> In Canada Electrical workers are required to wear dielectric rated footwear with a steel shank and steel toes.
> Some prefer tennis shoes.


Steel or just CSA Grade 1? Plenty of CSA Grade 1 composite stuff on the market.


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## Michigan Master (Feb 25, 2013)

Shocked through your boots... Possible, but not very likely at 120V.

I think most of us who've been shocked by low voltage while wearing good footwear did not have current travel from our point of contact through our shoes/boots to ground. Most likely we had second point of contact with a grounded object. 



> A few times on a fiberglass ladder touching a grid for ceiling tile too. Splain that!


If the grid for the ceiling tile was grounded, and you were touching it with your arm or other body part and your hand made contact with an energized wire, current would flow from your hand through your body to the grounded ceiling tile grid; the fiber glass ladder and EH rated boots don't help if you have another point of contact with ground. Hence the old adage, “work with one hand in your pocket”. See graphic from Mike Holt below.

However if you look at the pictures below, most likely these guys weren’t walking around barefoot when this occurred; certainly these injuries are the result of contact with a much higher difference of potential than 120V though.


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## wendon (Sep 27, 2010)

This thread is Cletis. If everything is perfect, your boots/shoes are dry and made of the right materiel, the resistance of your skin is right etc. etc. you probably won't get shocked. Otherwise a lot of people have proven it false!


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## Michigan Master (Feb 25, 2013)

*Using Dielectric and Electrical Hazard Shoes*
Minute holes in the soles of the footwear are the biggest area of concern in the protection scenarios.

_By Hugh Hoagland Apr 01, 2011_
There are two basic names for shoes that have some protection from electrical shock: Dielectric (DI) and Electrical Hazard (EH) rated. The differences between the standards are not usually understood, even by electrical specialists. Few guidelines exist on when and where to use the shoes in either standard. This paper offers some assistance on which standards relate to which shoes.

See link below for full article:
http://ohsonline.com/articles/2011/04/01/using-dielectric-and-electrical-hazard-shoes.aspx


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## Hackster (Jun 15, 2013)

I remember in high school the electronics teacher was explaining ways to get shocked. He specifically cited this scenario of getting shocked thru your shoes.

Al it takes is the tiniest little crack int he sole, something you can't even see. Then a little bit of moisture in that crack is enough to carry enough current for you to feel, maybe even to hurt you. Have you ever had a nail or screw go thru your boot, then when you look at the hole a couple weeks later you can't even find it? Well, you can have many other tiny holes like that.

I remember working at a mall at night and replacing all of the floor boxes with new brass hardware and receptacles. There are way too many panels so I changed out the receptacles hot. At the beginning of the night when it was still cool from the AC being on I could touch the hot wire to twist the strands together. But then as the night when on and I got sweaty because the mall heated up and became humid because the AC switched off, I noticed that I would feel a shock when touching that hot wire as I sat on the tile floor. The intensity of the shock was directly proportional to how much swamp ass I had built up in my shorts, I kid you not.

So if it could go thru the moisture in my pants and tighty-whiteys, it could definitely got thru the moisture in the cracks in the soles of work boots.


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