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I'm very intrigued--can I get any more details about how you could safely do that? Did you, e.g. disconnect the main breaker and have a spare Van de Graaff generator lying around?

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It's called Insulation Resistance Testing and an electrician would typically use a device like a Megger tester.

Here's a good video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsXUuuV4_sw

Oh, of course. I was not thinking right. I was imagining a 'chunky' HV supply rather than a hi-pot tester, like some Stanford Research PSU, but those only went up to a few kV if I'm remembering correctly. Thanks.

I obviously had help :)

I had an electrician come and perform this step. The house was disconnected from the source, and then a "thumper" was used: https://megger.com/portable-fault-location-system-stx40- 2000

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