Hello all, I have a older 120v spa that overnight developed a short. The spa is on a cement slab and if I stand on the cement barefooted, I get a shock like tingling in the fingers. When I turn on the pump, it gets a bit worse. I have a GFCI and tested it with a ground tester and all good. I went one by one and unplugged the heater, the circ pump and then finally the main pump. Still getting a small shock. Any help would be appreciated.
The only thing I have done since yesterday is to add muriatic acid to get my TA down. I added about a cup last night, ran the jets for a few and covered it up.
GFI at the main panel or GFI on the plug....? You tested it how? With a ground fault circuit tester? I would turn it off.......and do some investigation before testing with bare ft.... hummmmm any other electrical devices in or near the tub. Is your main panel grounded well? Is the ground on your circuit in good shape..... No neutral and ground mixup? Muratic acid is like making a battery? hummmm jloomis
Several years ago as a utility employee I ran a service call to a house where a guy had gotten out of his pool, touched a gate on a chain link fence, and been electrocuted. We did a lot of looking around because the call made no sense. What we found was that he had run a single wire from his pool motor hot to the circuit breaker. At the pump equipment pad, he ran a short wire from the pump neutral lead to a ground rod. So when the pump came on, the return was literally the ground. When he touched the chain link gate near the panel, he was lit up. Terrible.
Make sure all three wires (Hot, neutral and ground) are good. If the spa is old you really have no idea how the internal wiring is. Is the service wire run underground or above ground? I have seen wire run uderground fail with age. If above, is it in conduit, is the insulation good? Is it a dedicated circuit? Is it powered off a sub-panel or the main panel? There are a lot of things to look at. First isolate the circuit and make sure the wiring is all good. Interesting thought about the battery. Disconnect the circuit completely and see. Is the circuit breaker good? I'd disconnect the hot only and see what happens (pull the breaker off the panel). Lots to do. I wouldn't use that spa, but maybe you could invite my ex-wife over?
An electrician will possibly know best what to do with it. I personally would keep away of it.
goog luck!
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I am not sure this has anything to do with your problem. We had an electrical problem similar to what you are talking about. I would get a mild shock if I put my hand in the water of my washer. I also got one once on the front porch when I was barefooted in the rain and I opened the screen door. We had three different electricians over a few years and no one could find the cause.
Finally we had to have our water pump replaced. When they pulled it from it's 78 foot deep home they found the casing had vibrated for so long there was a hole in it. This was the cause of my shock. I had never noticed the pump was running at the time I got the shocks. When we put in a new pump put in and I had no more shocks. They put a rubber ring around the new one so it could not rub against the well pipe when it ran.
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