Thanks as always Mike for keeping us aware of potential causes of hot skin conditions! It is easy to take it for granted that everything is wired correctly. I recently added an outlet circuit to an outdoor electrical panel. Everything went fine connecting the hot and neutral but when I was connecting the ground wire to the ground bus bar, I discovered that the screw connecting the ground bus bar to the chassis was loose. The individual ground connection screws were all tight. It was just the grounding that was loose and this made me suspect that it had been this way for a long time. I’ve never received a shock when touching the breaker box so there must have been a relatively good path to ground through the loose screw. But it felt really good to know that my ground and neutral connections had been checked and were in order. The take-home message is that it’s good to check the neutral and ground bus connection screws every once in a while. It’s also good to check circuit breaker connection screws particularly on high current appliances like dryers and ovens. I found one that was sizzling and replaced it of course. Breakers with high current’s flowing through them are working hard and over many years it can take a toll. Of course,it is important that any circuit breaker you check is switched off before you check the connection.
Thanks as always Mike for keeping us aware of potential causes of hot skin conditions! It is easy to take it for granted that everything is wired correctly. I recently added an outlet circuit to an outdoor electrical panel. Everything went fine connecting the hot and neutral but when I was connecting the ground wire to the ground bus bar, I discovered that the screw connecting the ground bus bar to the chassis was loose. The individual ground connection screws were all tight. It was just the grounding that was loose and this made me suspect that it had been this way for a long time. I’ve never received a shock when touching the breaker box so there must have been a relatively good path to ground through the loose screw. But it felt really good to know that my ground and neutral connections had been checked and were in order. The take-home message is that it’s good to check the neutral and ground bus connection screws every once in a while. It’s also good to check circuit breaker connection screws particularly on high current appliances like dryers and ovens. I found one that was sizzling and replaced it of course. Breakers with high current’s flowing through them are working hard and over many years it can take a toll. Of course,it is important that any circuit breaker you check is switched off before you check the connection.