stevebea
Senior Member
- Location
- Southeastern PA
Had a service call yesterday to a small mom n pop business. I got the the call because they were getting shocked off the front door which has an aluminum frame. When I put a DMM on it I had 105V to ground. After poking around awhile and discovering the aluminum soffits, fascia, gutters and downspouts were also energized I traced the problem to a old mercury vapor light mounted on a 4" rigid conduit. Some hack had poked a romex through the fascia and stapled the romex to the fascia for about 4ft. before it ran up the pole. There was a nick on the romex where it had been stapled way to hard to the fascia energizing all the aluminum on the exterior of the building. After 25 years in the trade it still amazes me what some people will do to save a buck.... either trying to do it themselves or getting their brother in law who wired their own addition 10 years ago to do work for them. Code compliant installations are still cheaper than off hours service calls!