I think maybe its my paraphrasing thats mostly at fault - I have no electrical understanding whatsoever so Im using commonplace terms to explain the gist of what i was told.Perhaps something has got lost in translation between the electrician, my husband and finally me. I have every confidence in the electrician; he is thoroughly legit and of first class longstanding reccommendations. He is also independant from the renovation team - deliberatly so as I wanted a second opinion on my house electrics, which are all fine. When i contacted the seller of the machine he suggested a few possible things to try - one of which was removing the grounding - this puts me very ill at ease as firstly I dont want to mess with something I dont understand and then plug it in, and secondly because i presume he rewired it with grounding for a reason. My instinct from the first problem was to return the machine but wanted to be sure as carriage rates are so costly. I adore vintage machines but find the idea of aged electrics very daunting. I have only recently emmigrated from england and didnt have to worry so much there as PAT tested machines could be easily sourced. Im going to replace this machine with a more locally sourced one (after returning the Pfaff); would you reccommend that new leads and foot pedal be perchased as a basic precaution for the next second hand machine?