What could be the reason a friend had a shock from an iron before the breaker tripped as I was always under the impression that you should not feel anything when a breaker trips?

Answer 1

You're right to say that but ONLY (a) if the iron's earth wire was properly connected to the safety earth or ground pin in its plug AND (b) if the socket outlet's earth or ground connector was actually connected to earth or ground.

If the iron's earth or ground wire was actually earthed/grounded the user would not have been able to feel any shock because the fault current would have gone straight to the safety earth /ground wire. No current could have gone through the person holding the iron because, in effect, the earth or ground wire "shunts out" the iron holder's body.

The easy way to be sure of exactly what happened is to find out (a) if the branch circuit's breaker had actually tripped or not, and, if not, then ( b) if only the GFCI or RCD had tripped, if one was fitted...

If if only the GFCI or RCD had tripped, then the person who experienced that shock definitely needs to check that:

(i) the iron's safety earth/ground wire is actually connected to the earth/ground pin of the plug on the end of its cord

and

(ii) that the safety earth/ground wire from the main breaker box is actually connected to the socket outlet's earth or ground connector.

Even doing all that may not be enough: I once repaired a friend's iron that had been dropped (a common way of damaging an iron) and its earth/ground wire had become detached from the earth/ground terminal inside the iron itself. I first found that out by using a test meter to check continuity from the plug's earth/ground pin to the iron's sole plate and there was no connection. I opened-up the iron's casing and found that the brass connector strip that went from the iron's earth/ground terminal to the sole plate had fractured at a sharp bend that had been made in the connector strip when it was manufactured (Not a good design at all!).

One of my bosses when I was an apprentice often used to say "Anyone who says repairing electrical faults is dead easy will probably end up dead much earlier than he expected!"

Some more information:

Appliances such as electric kettles and irons have a hard life because they produce water vapour and steam and often get dropped by careless users. Such conditions may cause the insulation of the wires inside the appliance to "perish" i.e. to become cracked and non-insulating - particularly if it was a low-cost appliance using poor quality insulated wire - and any dampness can then cause a "hot" wire to short either to the neutral wire or to the earth/ground wire, or to both.

The fact the breaker tripped means either

* that it was a bad enough short to raise the current above the branch circuit breaker's tripping point

or

* there was a RCD (also known as a GFCI) in the circuit and that detected an imbalance in current of a few milliamps between the live and neutral wires because of the leak of current to the user's body which was the cause of the shock he received.

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RCDs (also known as GFCIs) are mandatory for all new installations in Europe nowadays. They first came out about 20/25 years ago and in Europe they used to be fitted to the whole electrical system in a home - lights as well as ring main sockets - but that meant everything went off if something like a kettle or an iron had a short.

Whilst each circuit still has its own circuit breaker - including the lighting circuits - nowadays the wiring regulations say to fit an RCD in the main breaker box/consumer unit to protect only the power sockets on the ring main and also any extra branch circuits in the kitchen, such as for the oven. So the lights should still stay on if the RCD trips because of things like that iron getting an earth/ground fault

If someone doesn't yet have an RCD or GFCI protecting all his power sockets, it would be standard "best advice today" to recommend him to have one fitted.

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As always, if you are in doubt about what to do, the best advice anyone should give you is to call a licensed electrician to advise what work is needed.

Before you do any work yourself,

on electrical circuits, equipment or appliances,

always use a test meter to ensure the circuit is, in fact, de-energized.

IF YOU ARE NOT ALREADY SURE YOU CAN DO THIS JOB

SAFELY AND COMPETENTLY

REFER THIS WORK TO QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS.