My hood is shocking me

TheFertilizer

TheFertilizer

Well-Known Member
So I am not sure why but my hood is shocking me. At first I thought it was just a hot spot but it's definitely electricity. It's an Apollo hood and isn't UL listed or anything but the real problem is I can't ground it because my landlord refuses to install grounded outlets in my apartment. So being it's not UL listed it seems they just counted on it getting grounded in order to not shock the end user.

Can I maybe paint the outside edges? It seems like it's coming through on the edges that were stamped out and s nce they're really jagged/hard edges the metal is exposed or the paint is just super thin on those spots. Thinking maybe grinding them down and covering with an acrylic paint. That or just being careful not to touch it.

I wish my damn landlord would just put in grounded outlets. Isn't that a code violation? I can't really complain since I am on a month by month basis and I am sure if I tried to handle it through the courts it wouldn't go well for me, I don't have the money for that shit anyway. I thought about calling an electrician but they would have to ask the landlord anyway. Most concerning thing is the maintenance guy actually tried to explain that having grounded outlets would be MORE of a fire hazard. Ahh slums

Is there any good DIY outlet grounding information?

P.S.
Yeah I realize it's a huge safety issue, but please limit advice to be within the realm of practicality. Can't move, can't force the repairs, and I have plenty of other appliances waiting to burn the house down because my ungrounded outlets. I know not using a GFI outlet is a sin amongst men, but those are the cards I've been dealt.
 
Richard Richardson said:
At least wear rubber gloves and make sure you wear good shoes with insulating soles.

Painting the hood may help, but in your situation I would wear gloves all the time at home :goodluck:

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The first video is definitely exactly my style of outlet but I notice it still ends up being an open ground in the end. So doesn't that mean it's still an ungrounded outlet? Makes me wonder how a ground fault interrupt would even work without a ground :-\

The maintenance guy was saying if he did one he'd have to do them all the same way and something about how there would still be no ground so maybe he was talking about that code. He also said something about if there was a ground it would "just sit there cooking" but I didn't understand that, but I think he just doesn't want to be bothered.

See the other thing is I have one outlet that if I plug my ballast into it, and the blower fan at the same time, the ballast won't always turn on. He blames the ballast, but if I plug them both into the other outlet (just outside my door) it runs fine. His reasoning for that was that they were in different circuits and the outlet outside my door is a larger amperage breaker, but when I watched him replace both of the outlets to 3 pronged receptacles I could swear the same breaker turned off both outlets so that couldn't be it. Like I said I feel like he just doesn't want to actually make sure they're okay.

It worries me though because the ballast has made both outlets spark at one point too, that's the other reason I had him check them out, but they seem fine and they're brand new receptacles now, so he's reluctant to look any further. Maybe the ballast is bad or something? I know it's supposed to have some kind of short-circuit protection and that's what really worries me, like it isn't switching on when the fan is in the outlet too because of some short circuit. It also has "power fluctuation" protection too though so maybe the fan is doing something weird, but then why only that outlet? Maybe the fact the hood is shocking me is evidence the short is there in the hood.

So yeah it's a little more perplexing than just worrying about getting shocked. Maybe I should just warranty the thing but that would be a huge pain in the ass and I can't even tell what the problem is for sure. Besides I think it's for the ballast only!

I am going to wait until tomorrow and go at it with a multimeter. I have a feeling the area where the Mogul socket is attached to the hood is not insulated well enough the hood is someone inducting charge. Not sure how I could fix it if so but I know I should be able to test for it by testing for resistance with one probe on the hood and the other in the mogul socket. Well I think anyway... It might not show without a significant load running through and I don't have the knowledge to test live voltage.
 
So it turns out it's just shockingly bad manufacturing... You see what I did there? Lol No but really this is a great if not scary example of why using equipment that's designed to be grounded without a ground is dangerous stuff.

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So I will explain...

1. This picture shows the grounding screw and fastener that connect to the fixture, notice the painting/coating surrounding the hole is chipped and exposing bare metal
2. I have the multimeter set to read resistance (Ohms) by putting the probe on the exposed metal
3. I find another part where the paint is chipped and the metal is exposed to put the other probe, and as you can see a circuit of very little resistance is readout on the meter
4. Shows the small piece of tape I hoped would insulate the eyelet from the exposed metal hood

Well it doesn't shock me now, but I am still concerned about the ground screw being close to the explosed metal still. The meter reads no connection now when putting the probe on the ground screw and the other in the corner of the hood though, and as I said I don't get shocked.

This is a scary thing though because basically touching the hood was connecting me to the ground wire. That might not be a problem with a grounded receptacle but basically all that means is that I was the path of less resistance, essentially I was the ground.

I am not really sure how I should move forward :-\ Fix it? Return? Warranty?

I do think this is shoddy manufacturing still though. I mean if it had been in a grounded plug I'd never have got shocked, but still how hard is it to insulate said ground wire from the rest of the hood. Oh well I am just dumb lucky the main wires were well insulated.
 
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