Tried the "tin foil on the doorknob" trick my grandpa swore by, got zapped instead

So last week I was dealing with a weird static shock issue at my house in Portland. Every time I touched the metal front door knob, bam, static zap. My grandpa always said wrapping it in tin foil would ground it out. I gave it a shot. Wrapped that knob tight with heavy duty Reynolds Wrap. Walked back, touched it, and got the biggest jolt of my life. My hand went numb for like 5 minutes. Turns out the foil just made a better conductor and the charge had nowhere to go because my house wiring is old and probably not grounded right. What did I learn? Grandpa's advice works great in a 1950s house but not in a 1990s one with bad grounding. Has anyone else tried old school fixes that backfired because of modern building materials?

2 comments

2 Comments

julia_hayes5d ago

Hang on, I gotta push back a little here. I don't think the foil trick is necessarily the problem, it sounds more like your house's grounding is the real issue. If your wiring isn't grounded right, then any metal surface is gonna be a liability, foil or not. The foil probably just made it worse because it's a great conductor, like you said, but the real fix is getting an electrician to check your grounding, not blaming grandpa's advice. People swear by that trick all the time with older houses that have proper grounding, and it works fine. Your situation is a safety hazard that's been there since the 90s, just hiding until you put foil on it.

wendyk635d ago

My uncle had the exact same thing happen with his 1950s house when he tried the foil trick behind an old baseboard heater. The house was ungrounded, and that foil basically became a live wire waiting for someone to touch it. He had an electrician come out and install proper grounding, and now he uses the foil method without any issues at all. It's absolutely worth spending the money on an electrician to check everything, because that old wiring is a time bomb even without the foil.