I’ve just watched an old tv show where the main character is tortured in someone’s basement with a live wire. The current is obviously flowing from the wire, through him and into the ground. Why does this not cause the fuse to blow?
I think this is probably just an error on their part, but I’m kinda curious now if that’s actually correct or not. I’m tempted to steal the idea for a book I’m writing but I’d need to know first whether or not that’s a valid method of torturing someone (never thought I’d find myself writing that sentence 😆).
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Fuses and circuit breakers are between the main live line in your “main panel” and the wires that go to your outlets. A fuse is basically like a strip of metal that will melt when a certain amount of current flows through them. Basically like a light bulb.
So when you shock someone with a live wire, since the electricity goes from the main line, through the fuse, over the wire and then into the person can be so much current that the fuse will melt. Now what you should understand is that at the main panel, the “neutral” wire is connected to the ground. Any electricity running from the live wire is trying to get back to the ground.
The purpose of a fuse or circuit breaker is to protect the wires. Without this protection the wires might get hot enough to catch fire or melt in a fault condition.
There are devices that trip when current goes to ground instead of back through the neutral, these are called GFCI or RCD(if you’ve seen outlets with “test” and “reset” buttons, this is that). They’re most often used to protect bathroom, kitchen, and outdoor outlets, where the risk of electrocution is higher. Recent electric codes are expanding the number of circuit types where they’re required.
Arc fault circuit breakers are also a thing that exists, and also aren’t used for everything.
Going to depend heavily on where you live and when the house was built.
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