Kitchen faucet pull out hose arcing with drain pipe

4 years ago

last modified: 4 years ago

Hi all,
Have a problem of the kitchen faucet pull out hose arcing against the drain pipe. Frustrating thing, happens intermittently. I've been trying to get it to happen for the past hour and nothing. The dishwasher's on right now, nothing. Yesterday night doing dishes in the sink, heard the arc and recorded a video linked below. Believe when we first noticed the problem it was also happening with the breakers turned off. I say believe because breakers for entire house were turned off after we saw the problem and I still saw it arcing. But that's hard to believe. Oh nothing major done to house in 3 years and that was the breaker box being replaced.

I was all set to call an electrician until I realized I couldn't get it to happen consistently. What if I call them out with the minimum service fee and nothing. Then I thought wait should I be calling a plumber or electrician in the first place? Then I thought what can I check myself. So I'm in a dizzy right now on how to proceed. Thanks for reading.

Featured Answer

cat_ky

4 years ago

Call the electrician first. There has to be a reason, and you dont want a plumber getting a shock there. An electrician will have a way to check it. A plumber probably doesnt have that type of tools.

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Comments (11)

hemina
4 years ago
Get an electrician out there ASAP. Yikes!
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morz8 - Washington Coast
4 years ago
Call the electrician. And show him what you showed us if you can't make it happen in front of him. We can see the clip - show him this thread.
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kudzu9
4 years ago
And stay away from that faucet until you get an electrician out: that arcing below the sink means that anything connected above the sink that's metal could be energized.
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Joseph Corlett, LLC
4 years ago
Very strange.
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Ron Natalie
4 years ago
Yes. There are two things that should be electrified and one of them is. This is why most stuff is supposed to be bonded so that at least you'll trip a breaker.

This demonstrates why AFCI is important. The amount of current to make the arc is less than what would trip the breaker, but boy is it likely getting hot enough to start a fire (let alone the electrocution hazard).
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DavidR
4 years ago
Do you have an electric water heater? Copper plumbing? A fractured heating element in the WH can place significant amounts of voltage on the plumbing system. Or the dishwasher may have a ground fault when it's not operating, or your refrigerator through its icemaker. There are lots of possible sources..

If your plumbing system isn't properly bonded to ground, it can float at whatever voltage is present. It's not too uncommon for the bonding jumper across the water heater to be missing.

Now and then the source can even be outside the house. In the early 2000s I ran across a weird situation where a friend's phone line read over 70 volts to ground. It was enough to give me a pretty good tingle. He called the phone company and they wouldn't believe him. He never did get it fixed.
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Daniel D.
4 years ago
Thanks for the replies electrician schedule
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Ron Natalie
4 years ago
Yep, DavidR, this is why metalic piping is **SUPPOSED** to be bonded to ground,
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Moo Dang
Original Author
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
It was the water heater lacking bond btwn hot cold Contractor missed that. But at the same time electrician said the job contractor and his team did replacing breaker box and other electrical work was good.
Ron Natalie
4 years ago
The bond would alleviate the arcing (fire and occupant safety issues), but DavidR is right there is likely something ELSE wrong here. The bonding just assures that the piping won't become dangerously live before the breaker trips.
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