DISCLAIMER: I am not an electrican.

There should not have been anything more than low leakage current in the water pipes. Some common leak sources are electric water heater, washing machine, garbage grinder, and dish washer.

If this is an older house, it may have been wired expecting the plumbing to provide grounding when the intended path was less than perfect. Older wiring did not have the 3rd ground wire and depended on a metal cable shield to provide this path. This shield was supposed have been well bonded to each box that the circuit passed through. Sometimes, these bonds were less than prefect.

The plumbing ground was broken when a piece of plastic pipe was inserted at the entrance. Maintaining the plumbing ground is important. The codes in my community require a grounding strap around the water meter to shunt the current around the meter and to insure a ground when the water meter is removed for service. Water meters do not like electrical current. Our town changes all water meters every 10 years for maintence and calibration. The grounding shunt in my house is a piece of conduit securely bonded to the water pipes (which are copper).

You should measure the voltage of your leak. It may be at a dangerous level. In fact, there should have been no sensation. Find the culprit and fix. Luckly, you have found a potentially dangerous condition before any harm was done.

DISCLAIMER: I am not an electrican.

If the water piping is metal, it needs to be bonded to the house ground. If your DIY predecessor removed the bonding or put some insulated pipe in there to insulate the bonded section from the rest, you need to have this fixed.

It's quite possible that the "floating" plumbing system is just inducing enough current to give you a tingle. Contrary to the previous suggestion, you probably don't have access to the equipment to do any meaningful measurement of the voltage. Further, even having made that measurement, what are you gong to do about it.

Bond the water pipe. If some piece of electrical equipment is energizing the pipe, the bond may in fact give the faulting path necessary for the breaker to trip. If your house doesn't have them, consider GFCI protection in areas that modern code would require them (bathrooms, kitchens, outside, garages, unfinished basements,...).

"Contrary to the previous suggestion, you probably don't have access to the equipment to do any meaningful measurement of the voltage."

A decent digital volt meter will show the voltage since its load impedance is very high.

If you measure the voltage you can then go to a high AC amps scale and see the leakage current.

The problem occurs if the leakage current is actually large, and you will get an arc that may trip the breaker.

It is NOT a recommended test for the inexperienced (and is best done with something in the circuit to limit the current).

Bond the water lines across the plastic section and see if the problem is solved.

If it is an induced current it is likely to be so small and have such a high source impedance the bonding till eliminate it.

If it is larger you may very well trip a breaker and need to figure out were the fault is on the tripped circuit.

There are a few things that need to be understood regregarding this situation. First, there should be (basically) no hazardous current traveling along your plumbing pipes. By the requirements of the National Electrical Code, all metal piping must be bonded to the electrical service. this is usually done by attaching a bonding jumper to both the hot and cold water (metal) pipes.

secondly, astray voltage test should be done to find out how much voltage is traveling or present on the pipes. this can be checked by simply sticking a screwdriver in the earth and taking a voltage reading betwee the screwscrewdriver and the pipe. Tjis would be a great time to try and locate the cause of the problem.

to locate the source(s), leave the meter attached to the screwdriver and the water pipe.

Tgo to the electrical panel and shut off the main breaker. If the volt meter now reads zero, you know that the source of the problem is inside your home.

if that is the case, turn the main breaker back on and start turning the branch circuits off, one at a time and check the meter each time. when you see the voltage reduced to a lower level, that is either the circuit or one of the circuits that is causing your problem.

these can be hard to find if you are not familiar with locating such things.

Bottom line is, bond both water lines with a copper conductor sized per the NEC.

Gas lines are also required to be bonded as well.