Why are the batteries shocking, who is to blame?

A familiar attribute of a living room are heating radiators. Without these plumbing fixtures, it is impossible to create a warm comfortable atmosphere in the cold season. Touching the batteries is sometimes accompanied by a slight tingling or more noticeable, even painful fluctuations in the electric current, which may cause irritation to the skin.

Why is the battery shocking?

The human body is affected by electricity. Therefore, when in contact with conductive elements, discomfort occurs. Low current voltages of up to 20 volts are difficult to detect by touch. High voltage causes itching and burns the skin surface upon contact. A current of more than 120 volts has a painful effect on the body. If, when touching radiators, an electric discharge causes a painful reaction, then the cause of the appearance is identified and eliminated.

Problems inside your apartment

Equipping housing, a person complements it with all kinds of modern household appliances that increase comfort. These include: electric water heaters, microwaves, office equipment. And wiring is not always designed to connect such equipment. In addition, improving the interior of the apartment, the owners complement the decor using various products with synthetic components: laminate, carpet and upholstered furniture.

Such innovations give housing not only comfort, but can cause the appearance of current on the surface of the batteries. These include:

• static discharge arising from an abundance of synthetic materials;
• improper connection of home electrical wiring at the input;
• malfunction of household appliances;
• damage to the wiring;
• the use of communication pipes as grounding, when connecting electrical equipment.

To identify the cause, the following activities are carried out:

First of all, find out if the current is static. After the discharge is disturbed, you need to touch the radiator again. If the battery no longer be shocked, this means that the problem is due to the presence of static voltage associated with a large number of synthetic products in the room.

In case of repeated unpleasant sensation, other possible causes are diagnosed. For this:

• check the presence of "land" the correct connection at the entrance to the apartment;
• inspect household appliances for possible exposure of joints or heating elements;
• check the contacts, and if possible, measure the resistance of the wiring of the apartment (cables of different phases should not "shorten" or be burnt);
• identify possible leads of the ground wire to the water or heating pipes of the apartment.

IMPORTANT! In the presence of a tester, they are convinced of the presence of resistance of each phase and the absence of "wandering" currents.

If any of the shortcomings is detected, it is eliminated, because a small voltage leak may increase and subsequently cause a short circuit.

REFERENCE! An improperly made ground loop, in private households, can be the reason for the appearance of "wandering" currents.

Neighborhood involvement

The risers of the heating pipes and water pipes are conductors of electricity. If the neighbors used communications in order to ground electrical appliances, then the whole staircase will suffer from this. It is very difficult to identify such a connection and, often, you have to put up with this problem without solving it.

ATTENTION! Centralized electricity supply in apartment buildings of Soviet-era buildings, not provided for the grounding bus! This forces residents to connect the third wire of the modern electrical engineering.

In addition, unscrupulous residents who use illegal methods of connection can bypass the meter near you. Such a connection in the neighbors can cause batteries to be shocked.

Electricians to eliminate "wandering" effects, it is recommended to install a residual current device (RCD) at the entrance to the apartment. But the experience of installing such devices suggests that their use in old five-story buildings does not a positive result, on the contrary, adds to the problems of the residents, due to the constant power outage to the apartment.