Live earth wire concern

[Ouch99]

Hi, thanks in advance for any advice here please on a safety worry...

My son lives in a rented house and recently got a strong electric shock when he turned on a light switch, he felt it go down his arm and to the floor (bare feet, tiled floor). An emergency electrician came out and found that the earth connected to the switch face was live, disconnected it and replaced it with a plastic blanking plate. It’s a 2 way switch, he changed the other metal switch for a plastic one, and left the lighting circuit on.
He also did some investigation into the cause of the live earth, took down one of the recessed ceiling lights on the lighting circuit and a few rat droppings fell down, so presumably it could be due to chewed insulation. He didn’t investigate further (said he hadn’t been authorised to for the job).

So my questions if anyone can help are:

1. Is it safe to leave the circuit on given somewhere on it presumably there is a live wire contacting an earth wire which hasn’t yet been found? Further shocks possibly, or fire, etc.
   
   
2. Should the consumer unit have prevented the shock, or is it defective in some way?

Nots sure if its relevant, but the house had an EICR in 2021 that found some category C2 faults with the consumer unit which have been addressed (according to a EI Safety Record Summary).

It’s worrying, thanks for any advice.

 

[littlespark]

C2 faults mean “potentially dangerous” and the homeowner (landlord in this case) has to remedy…. And show that it’s been remedied.

Either another EICR, or certificates to show those faults have been addressed.

Emergency electricians work to the point of “it’s working now, and was safer than how I found it” but they are under the assumption the fault will get fully repaired at the soonest opportunity…. Ie, the Monday morning following a weekend call out.

Do you have access to the EICR?

Can you post photograph of the consumer unit?

From that, we can usually gauge the age of the wiring, and if any upgrading has been done.

 

[Ouch99]

C2 faults mean “potentially dangerous” and the homeowner (landlord in this case) has to remedy…. And show that it’s been remedied.

Either another EICR, or certificates to show those faults have been addressed.

Emergency electricians work to the point of “it’s working now, and was safer than how I found it” but they are under the assumption the fault will get fully repaired at the soonest opportunity…. Ie, the Monday morning following a weekend call out.

Do you have access to the EICR?

Can you post photograph of the consumer unit?

From that, we can usually gauge the age of the wiring, and if any upgrading has been done.

That was quick, cheers.
Have attached EICR, EC Installation/Modification & EI Safety Record Summary.
Also photo of consumer unit (hope resolution good enough).

 

[littlespark]

There’s two things I notice straight away….

Every circuit is covered by an rcd, so any electric shock should trip one or the other very quickly.
Unless something was badly wrong with the wiring, which your emergency electrician has already found… a live to cpc short and the cpc itself not connected back to earth at the board.

Second…. According to the EICR, the two RCDs have exactly the same trip times recorded… the EIC after repairs have them listed different.

It makes me think the first EICR was rushed… Looks ok, but a mistake on the paperwork… can’t be sure the inspection itself was thorough.

The EIC that covers the repairs will only fix what was discovered on the earlier inspection. There may have been other faults that were not discovered and therefore still there.

I must say though, that it looks like both have been done properly. It’s not usual to visually inspect cables running through attics, under floors etc… so rodent damage would not be seen until it actually breaks down enough to affect the test rmeasurements.

Further investigation may find the remains of said rodent with its jaws bridging live and cpc.


Oh, and well done blanking out all the personal details on the sheets.