First topic message reminder :

Hi,
I was wondering what the cause and how to fix the problem of the tingle feeling you get from inside the dish washer and washing machine.The house has all new wiring.I am in the dobrich area.


Regards Robert
ps first post and new to the site nice to meet you all...

I don't normally give any advice to this type of DIY but this might help you but you should ask a competent engineer to do this for you and test the system.

1. Make hole in the ground as close to the house as possible, Hammer into the ground a copper spike (>
1.5m long) run a cable from the spike (minimum 10 mm) to earthing bus bar in the consumer unit.
2. Run earth wires to each socket and water heater in bathroom and all pipe work unless its plastic from the bus bar in consumer unit.
3. Replace and connect new 3-pin sockets making sure that all live wires are tested for and connected to the correct pin.

You may also want to run eaths cables to all the lighting? but to be quite honest you are better to rewire and that way you will know how safe the wiring is.

Sorry TN-C is system for all of BG before 2004 and we will see this system for many years.

Dear Fibo
For me the electricity is child’s play, but I don’t want to be killing anybody with me recommendations. To earthing our installation is have only one correct way it is to call the competent electrician.
Quote robert bridges “I was wondering what the cause and how to fix the problem of the tingle feeling you get from inside the dish washer and washing machine.The house has all new wiring.I am in the dobrich area”. I don’t know what the system of wiring is, tree or two core, (TN-C-S or TN-C). Sorry I don’t want to suppose.
You are right krypton everything you said is right especially “should ask a competent engineer to do this for you and test the system”

Good advice Peter and thank you for clearing that up

Hi All,
Just an update on my problem.Got someone round to check it out.The house has been fitted with an earth spike.But they never bothered to attach the earth in side the socket.Once connected the problem went away.So thanks all for your help

Kind Regards Robert

Hi Robert,
Good to hear your problem has been resolved.
I do have a but!??! though.
The 2 wire supply system used here means that normally one of the wires (black?) is connected to earth at the meter/substation. If all is correct, that earth (at the meter) should be sufficient.
The reason for using earth spikes at the house, out here, is to provide a secondary safety earth. This is a good thing.
The fact that you were getting a tingle (shock) from your appliances without your new earth spike, means to me, that there is still a problem with your household supply. i.e. your black wire from the meter is resistive, your primary earth.
At the very least keep an eye on your electric bill. It may well increase if your supply earth is bad.

Glad to see you got sorted out Robert

Hi Alfie,
The earth spike was already there.But our electricity bill for not being there is 26-38 leva a month we only have the cooker clock and our alarm system running.The wife thought it was rather expensive.I am in the uk and you sound like you know somthing about it.I could really do with a chat over the phone.If its not to forward could you pm me your number so i could pick your brains...We tripped the outside box one night to see if the meter still went round but it stopped dead and no neighbour came out so no one has tapped into it.


Regards Robert

Hi Again Robert.
First things first,I'm not a qualified domestic electrician and as such, won't give 'expert' advice. Far too dangerous.
You need a good electrician to check out the supply system, from the meter and in the house. There must be someone on this forum near to you who knows a trustworthy electrician. It may be worth your while trapping an EON engineer to have a look in his/her spare time.
The fact that your meter is still running when everything is unplugged/turned off means you have current flow somewhere. Unless that current is doing something like operating your telly/computer/kettle/.....etc. it's leaking to ground somewhere through a resistive contact. i.e. it's not a dead short. That resistive contact will produce heat and could result in a fire.
I wouldn't put too much faith in the fact that your house has recently been rewired, having seen some of the work carried out over here by 'meisters', I'm of the opinion that a lot of builders penny pinch when it comes to employing tradesmen. Similar to UK really!
Assuming your new wiring system has a consumer unit (breaker/fuse box), here's a couple of checks you can safely make.

With NOTHING plugged in and all lights/boilers turned off:
1. Switch off the main breaker in the consumer unit at the house. Check the meter. Is it still registering power useage (going round)?
If so the problem is between the house and the meter. It could even be at the input side of the consumer unit.
2. If the problem goes away when you carry out the above - switch the main breaker back on. Assuming the meter starts registering power useage (going round), switch off each fuse breaker in turn and check the meter. If the meter stops registering when one or more breakers are switched off, the problem is internal to the house wiring.

Also, check the alarm system is correctly wired.

The above may isolate the problem to internal or external to the house. You will still need a qualified sparky to resolve whatever it is.
If after doing the above, you still need my number Robert I have no problem letting you have it.


Good luck,
Alfie.

There is a very good electrician on the forum who is a Bulgarian his name is Peter I think and he live in Bulgaria so he may be able to advise you. You can find him on this thread viewtopic.php?f=36&
t=1017

Daisy wrote:

There is a very good electrician on the forum who is a Bulgarian his name is Peter I think and he live in Bulgaria so he may be able to advise you. You can find him on this thread viewtopic.php?f=36&
t=1017

Probably a very good idea (Daisy) to contact Peter as although we may have been practising sparkies in the UK we will probably have, not got the Earth Loop Testers Meggers etc that will be required to get to the bottom of this problem. It could be a simple fault such as a crossed neutral, but these can be hard to find.

Hi all.
First I would say sorry for my delaying. I regularly logged on to ourbulgariaforum, but I don’t have sometimes to write anything.
Dear Sallyann first I should apply some copies of the documents which will be have the certificated electrician.
• For this whose is finished some school see the applied document in pct. 1 and 2.
• Also this person who has university education must have the document applied in pct. 4.
• Except the document applied in pct.1 and 2 or pct. 4, all persons whose work with electricity should be had the document applied in pct.3. That document certifies that the holder is finished a course in “[url=http:
//www.
lex.
bg/laws/ldoc/2135483644:1bfwtx3k]regulation for safety work with electrical installations[/url:1bfwtx3k]”. This document has five level of permission. See articles „Чл. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17” in the same regulation. This document has validity from a few months to one year max.
In future I mean will be good to open one new topic about “electrical advice” or something like that, where I or other electricians should be answered to everyone and somebody’s will be reading them. There I will try to show you how to work safer with electricity.
In this sense is my answer on the question “how to check up the meter, is it works correctly or not”. I prepare you one "
part of wiring diagram"
in PDF format, see pct.5. There I try to explain step by step how to make it.
Bye for now and see you...

Thank you \Peter for all this information, I'm sure others will be pleased that they can check a tradesman's qualifications in this way

Can anyone recommend an electrician in the Nessebar area, near Burgas? I've pm and emailed Peter but no reply (probably too far away from me). We have the same problem - small electric shocks from the dishwasher and sink. Our holiday apartment was built 2004/5 but we never noticed the problem because we always wear flip flops, so we don't know how long it's been like it. We've had to turn the dishwasher off.
We are coming out on 4th june and would really like an electrician to come round on 5th june to get this sorted.
Any help greatly appreciated

thanks

janice

I'm surprised that Peter hasn't got back to you perhaps he is away at the moment ? he normally replies to all questions. From what you have said here I think it's an earthing problem which needs to be sorted out by a tradesman.

janiceneame wrote:

Can anyone recommend an electrician in the Nessebar area, near Burgas? I've pm and emailed Peter but no reply (probably too far away from me).

Hello janiceneame. Sorry for the delay. Unfortunately I'm in Sofia and I do not know anybody in the area of Nessebar which you recommend. As bigsavak said it looks like bad earthing. Eventually I could be come to Nessebar to check the installation and fix the problem. But... So if you want coll me on the Skipe.