Why you get shocked
Voltage is always between two points, and a shock happens when your body joins them. You touch a bare hot wire, a metal pipe, and a wet floor, and see how little current it takes to kill.
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What to try
- 1On Plain breaker, set Hand to On the hot. With your feet on the ladder and the other hand away, no current flows.
- 2Set Other hand to On the pipe, then set Skin to Wet. The current climbs into the range that can kill, and the 20 A breaker stays on.
- 3Pick GFCI breaker and try it again. The GFCI sees current missing and shuts off. Press Reset to turn it back on.
NEC 2026 sections it covers
- 210.8(A)
- Basement receptacles in a home need GFCI protection.
- 250.104(A)(1)
- A metal water pipe is bonded at the service.
- 240.4(D)
- 12 AWG copper gets a 20 A breaker at most.
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More visuals
- A circuit is a loopCurrent flows only when it has a full path out and back. Open the switch or break a wire and watch it stop.
- Conductors and insulatorsPut copper, aluminum, rubber, or skin on the meter and see how hard each one makes it for current to get through.
- Volts, amps, and ohmsChange the voltage or the heater and watch the amps follow. Amps equal volts divided by ohms.