Solar Exporting

chris_n

Reed_Richards said:

Maybe, but if it's a normal extension lead you would just plug some appliances into it; I can't picture the scenario where you come anywhere near the live of the house.  If their earth was at a different potential to your earth that could give rise to problems but wouldn't touching an earthed outside tap whilst standing on wet ground be equally bad?

A faulty appliance can get you in touch with the live from the house. Simple example, 2 metal lamps that should be earthed but aren't on a mantlepiece. You have moved them many times but have never had a shock because your very dry slippers provide no path to earth. You plug everything on one side of the mantlepiece into the extension because you put it there to run the heater in the fireplace. You then notice the lamps aren't symmetrical so grab them both to align them perfectly together. You now have a complete circuit with a relatively low resistance and a 415V potential, your slippers aren't going to help you now.

Qyburn

In that scenario, In spite of the slippers, wouldn't that still have been enough to trip an RCD?

I'm not for a moment suggesting that mixing phases to adjacent equipment is good practice, but in the main it is only more dangerous than normal in the presence of a fault.