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And if your electrical setup is up to spec it will be grounded and this will be a non-issue :)

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on a side-note, I've just purchased a model steam engine to play with :P

it's a scene from mythbusters :P
they were trying to figure out what happened if you disabled the safety systems on a commercial boiler

Commonly electrical fires happen if the wiring is terribly outdated, or has been tampered with by someone that does not know what he's doing...

Water Heater explosion - YouTube
:)

haha yeah :P they'd have to be quite large to provide power for a prolonged period of time.

best option here is to retire and take your time doing things :P

I've been looking for a house with a river streaming beside it to do exactly this, sadly that's impossible to find 'round here :(

Those will give you a quarter of a horsepower, which, frankly, is useless if you factor in losses over your belt.
to do anything useful, you'll need ATLEAST half a HP available at the machines...

What would be quite cool would be a lister engine powering everything. :D

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a stirling motor would be completely amazing, but sadly I have yet to see one that has enough power to power anything...

All electric motors with a metal chassis that you could electrocute yourself on are earthed.
those that aren't earthed have NO contact between any exposed metal parts and the electrical wiring.
...

There are plenty of low rpm electric motors around, and reductions are easilly added if required.

bear in mind that as far as I know, electric motors are the most efficient thing around to do this...