[Fitzie]

I have a 20" Hotpoint electric range that delivered a shock to a friend. She grabbed a pot on a burner and it nailed her when she touched the pot. She was barefoot, and it took a few minutes to get the use of her hand back. She's fine. In any case, it sounds like it was quite a jolt.

She mentioned that she had recently cleaned the range, so I asked about liquids. She said she was careful to clean them all up. I pulled out the burner, and saw some grease on the rubber insulator, where the burner plugs into its socket. I cleaned it up the best I could.

I pulled the thing away from the wall and punplugged the cord. I have a crappy voltmeter, but got 230V across the hots (red and black), and got 115V across either of the hots (red or black) and the neutral/ground (white or green). I didn't measure white to green. Should I? It should be 0V, right?

For grins, while the thing was disconnected, I went into the service panel on the range. I found that the RED lead was not at all torqued down. The eye or the lead was between the two hex nuts, but the hex nuts were at least 1/2" apart. This was evidently an oversight from the contractors who installed the thing about 4 years ago. I torqued it down.

The friend isn't that enthusiastic about using the range. My suggestion of putting on shoes was not considered helpful. :rolleyes: I don't have a problem calling somebody in, but who do I call, an electrician or an appliance guy? I live in Massachusetts, the finger-pointing here is legendary.

Is grease on a burner socket sufficient to cause voltage to hit the burner? I didn't think it was that much, to be honest.

Or was the bad termination of one of the RED lead the culprit? If so, can somebody explain that to me?

To test, would I simply place one lead of my meter on the Ground and the other on the burner itself?

Thanks!

[Missouri Bound]

The first thing I would check is the grounding of the appliance... starting with the receptacle. No voltage should leak anywhere on the appliance surface if the ground is good. Electricity always seeks out the least path of resistance... it shouldn't have been your friends hand. If you found one loose connection, there are probably more. Do as much troubleshooting that you are comfortable with or get a professional to check things out. You can never be too careful with electricity. In the right circumstance line voltage can be deadly.