Customer can “feel electricity” on shower door frame

I

iwirehouses

Senior Member
Hi everyone. I have a great troubleshooting record but have never seen this one. I figured this is an easy one. Check if theres voltage on anything and check if the plumbing and electrical is grounded. Should be obvious.

When i got there, she told me that when she takes a bath, and puts her hand on the metal shower door frame, she can slightly feel electricity in the door frame.

There is a gfci near by so i took out my multi meter. Went gfci neutral to shower head and drain. 0 volts. Went gfci neutral to door frame, 24 volts. The shower enclusure in fiberglass. Put a temporary jumper from shower head to door frame. The neutral to door frame cleared to 0volts.

To check the plumbing was grounded, i went gfci hot to shower head and drain. 120volts.

Gfci hot, to door frame and got 0. Went between the drain and door fame and got 1 volt

Id like to bond the door frame to the plumbing. But i dont know how i would do that. Its a finished bathroom in a second floor. Any insight would be great. Thank you!
 
Did you turn power off one at a time for every circuit in the house while taking voltage measurements ? For homeowners safety the cause of receiving shocks especially in wet location must be located & repaired. Wonder if a screw on the metal shower door frame pierced a cable. Worst thing the cause of shock might be on the line side ( feed ) to GFCI receptacle. Might want to use an insulated screwdriver while wearing proper PPE and remove one screw at a time while observing meter.
 
garbo said:
Did you turn power off one at a time for every circuit in the house while taking voltage measurements ? For homeowners safety the cause of receiving shocks especially in wet location must be located & repaired. Wonder if a screw on the metal shower door frame pierced a cable. Worst thing the cause of shock might be on the line side ( feed ) to GFCI receptacle. Might want to use an insulated screwdriver while wearing proper PPE and remove one screw at a time while observing meter.
Click to expand...
Thats true, i can take all the screws out and see if it still measures 24 volts to ground.

The likelihood of piercing any cables is very low. It’s 100 year old house. There might be some knob tube in the ceiling.🤣🤣 but I doubt there’s any wiring around the shower enclosure. I could be wrong though!
 
iwirehouses said:
To check the plumbing was grounded, i went gfci hot to shower head and drain. 120volts.

Gfci hot, to door frame and got 0. Went between the drain and door fame and got 1 volt
Click to expand...
If GFCI tripped on 1st reading, 0 volts with next reading is expected without power.
 
In a rent house I lived in for a while there was a window in the shower with an aluminum frame. If I touched the frame while standing in the shower with water in it, I got shocked, and it was not just a little tingle. I told the landlady about it, but when I moved out it had not been addressed.
 
infinity said:
And if it exists then it should be able to be proven. The piercing screw theory is plausible but from a liability perspective I would want to prove the existence of the problem prior to coming up with a remedy.
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Load it up with the customer bathing, touching the door frame occasionally, while you check min/max voltage. No load/load. That should be proof.
 
garbo said:
Did you turn power off one at a time for every circuit in the house while taking voltage measurements ? For homeowners safety the cause of receiving shocks especially in wet location must be located & repaired. Wonder if a screw on the metal shower door frame pierced a cable. Worst thing the cause of shock might be on the line side ( feed ) to GFCI receptacle. Might want to use an insulated screwdriver while wearing proper PPE and remove one screw at a time while observing meter.
Click to expand...
This ^^^
 
I think more investigation is needed on the water/drain rather than the door frame.

Another to consider is IT connections. I know from experience that digital coax can have a nasty bite of like 90V.

Also, a DMM usually is tuned for the 60hz range, and can totally miss critical information in other frequencies, and those frequencies can be a strong clue.

As well, I've seen appliances be a culprit, that are dumping current on the ground.
 
I had a service call where the resident was sensing electricity from the bathtub spigot. I killed the main
and disconnected the phone and TV service with no luck. Utility shut off the entire neighborhood and still there.
Total mystery. I bonded all the water pipes and drain pipes together and solved the problem.
Thinking it might have been someone's well pump gone bad and current flowing through the ground water
from a long distance.

Had the same problem years later. Utility shut off the area and it stopped. Asked nearby residences if
I could kill their main. The house across the street was the culprit. .
Breaker by breaker narrowed it down to a dishwasher circuit.
 
JP23 said:
I had a service call where the resident was sensing electricity from the bathtub spigot. I killed the main
and disconnected the phone and TV service with no luck. Utility shut off the entire neighborhood and still there.
Total mystery. I bonded all the water pipes and drain pipes together and solved the problem.
Thinking it might have been someone's well pump gone bad and current flowing through the ground water
from a long distance.

Had the same problem years later. Utility shut off the area and it stopped. Asked nearby residences if
I could kill their main. The house across the street was the culprit. .
Breaker by breaker narrowed it down to a dishwasher circuit.
Click to expand...
Happen quite often. A house in the neighborhood has a bad neutral. Current tries to go back via the water pipe. All the other houses have water pipes interconnected so the grounds are interconnected.
 
ptonsparky said:
If the customer, or anyone feels it, it’s not ghost voltage.
Click to expand...

A good reminder: 'Ghost voltage' is always a real voltage.

What makes it a ghost is that it vanishes in certain load conditions. It usually means that there is an extremely high impedance in the circuit path. Capacitive coupling through wire insulation, or slightly leaky insulation, or similar.

IMHO related to 'static electricity' but distinct.
 
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