Wow; so what would the shock feel like if you touched the motor thinking it was off while steadying yourself by holding on to the grounded water pipes?
If you have more than 1 hot conductor, you need to turn all of them on and off simultaneously.
Someone needs to replace the old level switch with a 2-pole level switch to make this happen and make it work properly (and safely). This was put into the Code many years ago...I guess your old school contractor either missed that, doesn't know or doesn't care.
