Can you get shocked by a heating element?

[Fiveohhh]

We have a burn off kiln at work here and a guy keeps saying that he's getting electricuted by accidently touching the heating coils. No one else gets shocked. I was curious as to if its possible. wouldn't that be like getting shocked by touching your metal pans on an electric stove?

 

[dullard]

Heating coils are simply wires with electricity flowing through them. So if he shorts some of the coils it is possible. But bodies generally have a very high resistance and the coil metal generally has a low resistance. So very little current will flow. From experience though, the inner part of your arm does conduct electricity quite readilly (along the lengh of the arm, not across it), so I could see it happening.

Are these heating elements insulated? Are they thin wires (where resistance would be higher than the thick stove heating elements)?

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Fiveohhh
We have a burn off kiln at work here and a guy keeps saying that he's getting electricuted by accidently touching the heating coils. No one else gets shocked. I was curious as to if its possible. wouldn't that be like getting shocked by touching your metal pans on an electric stove?

Maybe he's building up static and grounding himself on the coils?