getting lots of electric shocks

emujuice

we recently moved into a new flat. we set up all our shiney equiptment and now we get electric shocks off it all. we introduced a new digibox and a router/modem into the mix, so we're struggling to work out if the house has bad wiring or if we have a faulty piece of equiptment.
basically we have the dvd, games consoles, modem to games consoles, tv, and digibox all wire up to each other and plugged in the same extension board. we get shocks of any metal part of the equiptemtn. it's def not static as tehy don't discharge and are mostly painful. even the speaker wiring for the surround sound gives little shocks.
now the guestions are:
is this damaging our equiptment?
is it likely to be a faulty piece of equiptment?
or faulty wiring?

independently, and plugged in elsewhere in the house my mp3 player when plugged to the mains gives me a shock, but doens't if i plug it in at work...is the indicative of a wiring problem?
our land lord insists its not, as it's all newly wired and apparently has special fuses that will cut out the electricity if you did soomething stupid like put a knife in the toaster. i dont' really know what impact that has on all of this.
does anyone have any ideas?

Ps we've tried isolating the modem. if this is plugged inot the mains it shocks us. but if it's disconnected from everything the dvd player etc still shocks us. so although it seems onit's own in isolation to give shocks, it doens't prevent the others from shocking...

irnbru_2

Hopefully, this post will get moved to DIY board.

Faulty wiring would be my guess.

Get a socket tester.

Fraserca

Why are you wasting time posting on here? Your life is in danger if you are getting mains shocks from that faulty electrical setup. Get a qualified electrician in to check it all before someone gets killed.

The landlord should pay for this so tell him now that you have a safety problem. He should get it fixed or made safe immediately or he could get prosecuted.

You can take moneysaving TOO far.

robnye

i agree get an electrician to check the wiring out.

sounds like either your equipment has a problem or the household wiring isnt earthed properly.......

emujuice

thanks guys. the shocks are only small, you know, feel like large static shocks.
the landlord basically says it can't be the wiring as things aren't/are earthed? i don't really understand. he says he'll get an electrician, but if it's not the wiring we have to pay.
i was just wondering if any one else had experienced the same thing?
i'm not going to take risks if someone thinks it really is dangerous. basically we aviod touching the metal parts of stuff.
i'm thinking it's more likely to be a faulty bit of kit myself...

Joe_Bloggs

You say in your first post that it is definately not static. You can never be too careful where lives and health are at stake. Are you students ? If so can you get some assistance from your student union with technical advice in this area ? Perhaps you can get your devices checked over with a PAT tester or have a qualified electrician check out your place.

If you are forever shuffling over a nylon carpet and are then touching earthed objects then your fate is a 'zap' or electrical discharge. To a great extent this phenomenon depends upon footware and flooring surface. If the event is caused by a single contact point then it is a dicharge given insulating footware. I have been electrocuted many times with mains electricity and even more times with static discharges to earthed objects. I.have learned the difference between static and AC shocks. If the phenomenon is persistant it can be measured and the cause eliminated.
J_B.

emujuice

i am a student, so i might ask at my union.
basically i think i'm just going to have to unplug everything and try and make sure that it isn't the peice of equiptment that i've brought in. I'll let you know how i get on.

Raptorman_2

Hi,

It sounds like this is a dodgy earth of the house wiring. With many modern appliances they use switch mode power supplies which require the earth to be earthed proberly. If the earth is not connected the voltage of it can float around anywhere, and since usually the chasis is earthed, this means the chasis voltage will also be floating, hence the electric shocks.

Slightly different..... When I moved into my last house, the wiring was old and the insulation between all the cores was not very good. This meant that our earth was 'a little bit live'. We had the whole house rewired as it was due anyway!

If you're students, and in rented accomodation, I'm sure their are things in place to force the landlord to carry out the checks. If you have no joy with your union, go and see the citizens advice!!

It certainly aint worth risking your life over. The landlord wont give a stuff until a) he's forced to or b) he's in court on a manslaughter charge

Hope that helps a little.

Rap

emujuice

Raptorman wrote:

Hi,

It sounds like this is a dodgy earth of the house wiring. With many modern appliances they use switch mode power supplies which require the earth to be earthed proberly. If the earth is not connected the voltage of it can float around anywhere, and since usually the chasis is earthed, this means the chasis voltage will also be floating, hence the electric shocks.

Slightly different..... When I moved into my last house, the wiring was old and the insulation between all the cores was not very good. This meant that our earth was 'a little bit live'. We had the whole house rewired as it was due anyway!

If you're students, and in rented accomodation, I'm sure their are things in place to force the landlord to carry out the checks. If you have no joy with your union, go and see the citizens advice!!

It certainly aint worth risking your life over. The landlord wont give a stuff until a) he's forced to or b) he's in court on a manslaughter charge

Hope that helps a little.

Rap

that sounds likely - about the earth. the landlord is convinced that the new wiring he's had in is not the problem. he kept wittering on about earths, adn how new equiptment doesn't need to be earthed (some of the plugs on the new stuff have plastic earth bits). the modem, which does shock has a transformer as the plug, as does some of the other equiptment, which made him say we're not getting mains current shocks.
to be honest it's all pretty confusing. it's been like this for a couple of months. i'm not keen on being killed or anything, but there's so much wrong with the flat (nothing big, just niggly stuff) and i'm always on at him to get things sorted, that i want to make sure this isn't our fault before i 'make' him get an electrician in. he has said we're welcome to have one, but we have to pay if it's not the wiring...
i'm probably being too cheap aren't I?

irnbru_2

emujuice wrote:

i want to make sure this isn't our fault before i 'make' him get an electrician in. he has said we're welcome to have one, but we have to pay if it's not the wiring...
i'm probably being too cheap aren't I?

Have a look at the fusebox. Does your kitchen have a separate circuit for sockets? If so, or the cooker switch also has a socket, plug the MP3 player in there - is it shocking?

As for the modem, its sounds like an AC/DC adaptor. Goto Maplin buy a socket tester and a new adaptor. They'll take back the adaptor if unused.

Or since your at Uni, go see your departmental technician they'll get you an adaptor to test and maybe a socket tester too.

If all else fails get a Psychic - paranormal activity can mask itself as electricty ......

Fraserca

If its a new installation then a safety check should be cheap and easy to do. From what you say the landlord seems a bit dodgy. You say that there are a number of other problems. I suspent he has got some coyboy to do the electrics and he is scared that a professional will come in and tell him that it a bodge up/

Under recent regulations he could be prosecuted for using unqualified workers to repair electrics.

Couple of links for advice / background

http://scotland.shelter.org.uk/advice/advice-3802.cfm

http://www.rla.org.uk/rla.exe?input=../rla/scrp/regsElectrical.htm