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Posted by Pop` on November 16, 2006, 12:43 pm
Goedjn wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 07:48:32 -0600, graynor360@---------.com wrote:
>
>> We have all heard the horrors of tossing a toaster or other appliance
>> in a filled bathtub. Well, I dont understand this now. A friend
>> told me that he had to replace the shower valve in his tub. He
>> replaced it, leaving his tools and a plugged in trouble light in the
>> tub when he went out to the pump house to turn the water back on.
>> The problem, he never turned the tub faucets off. When he got back
>> in the house the tub was almost ready to overflow. and the trouble
>> light was under water except the bulb which was floating and still
>> lit. He said he immediately unplugged it. (the drain was shut
>> because he was afraid a screw would go down). How can this be? Why
>> did a breaker not trip? He said the socket of the light was filled
>> with water too, because he took it apart to dry it out. He said his
>> electric drill was also under water, but not plugged in. He took
>> that apart too.
>>
>
>
> Clean water isn't that good a conductor. Wet people are, though.
> What surprises me is that the bulb didn't blow up from
> thermal stress. FInd out for me what he was using as a bulb,
> will ya?
>
> I suspect that, in a non-metallic and/or ungrounded tub,
> you'd have a hard time electrocuting yourself, anyway.
>
> The voltage supply the voltage drain are, after all,
> right next to each other in whatever device you
> drop in the tub. why would the electricity want to
> make a side-trip through you? You have to touch
> two things at different potentials to get electrocuted.
>
> --Goedjn
>
> (and yet, I don't plan to test my theory...)
Electricity follows the path of least resistance.
YOU would BE the path of lowest resistance between any two points in the
tub. Note I'm not talking about "distance", I'm talking about resistance.
Submerged in water, you don't have to "touch" anything because the water
is "touching" every exposed part of your body. The source of the
electricity will find your body part closest to it. Electricity would exit
your body at the point closest to any ground point or point of lower
potential.
Even in an ungrounded tub, it would still be extremely dangerous. You
would -think- electricity would flow from the hot to the neutral of the plug
and you'd be safe, but that's not so either. Stray fields would fill the
tub and, agreed, most of the electricity would flow the half inch or so from
hot to neutral in the plug, light, whatever is in the water, but ... the
stray fields are the killers.
It would require fieldt theory to explain that fully and I sure don't
remember enough of it to even begin!
I think someone said that 300 mA or 0.3A was needed to electrocute you. Or
was it 130 mA? Anyway, the correct description is pretty well accepted to
be 42V ac and per person, it is a highly variable figure. 24Vac can be felt
easily and be very dangerous to some people. Others can take a hundred mA
or so; it's a huge variation depending on a lot of bodily specifications.
Almost any current which goes through a muscle is enough to cause the
muscle to contract during the cycles. Or, worse, it may cause only part of
a given muscle to contract. That includes the heart. Amps can flow from
finger to finger of the same hand without necessarily causing any heart
issues. But a milliamp from left to right arm can cause death, depending on
the body's chemical content and condition of the heart, if it lasts long
enough. So, time also becomes a variable. Your heart will respond to
shocks that you can't necessarily feel, in fact.
Anyway, yeah, no sense in testing the theories, and I'd love to know how
those numbers were derived!! <G>
I DO know that a radio dropped into a dairy watering tank -can-, not -will-,
blow a fuse: I did it as a kid back on the farm. The cattle all backed
away from the splash, but nothing else happened; luckily!
I've also had the experience of the stancion faucets losing their ground and
becoming electrified. The cows put up an AWFUL fuss about not being able to
drink. Out of about 90 of them, only one had any trouble come milking time;
she was too stressed to let the milk flow into the last chambers. But, she
lived to a ripe old dogfood age. Sounds cruel, but that's farm life.
Pop`
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