I provided a ground line to the base (ran a wire to a grounded copper water pipe) , but that does not fix the problem.
I forgot to mention that charge also accumulates on the aluminum base and you get shocked whenever you touch it to turn it off
You are missing a proper earthing connection.
The metal base parts and the electrical DC ground need to be connected to earth (the actual dirt outside).
Normally you'd do this by connecting it all with mains earth, but if your house has a broken earth then the entire generator will float and start to charge up. This will include the metal base plate, all the electronics and the secondary winding of the mains power pack.
At some point the primary/secondary insulation in the powerpack will fail and it will arc over.
Personally i've never liked earthing high voltage to the household earth wiring.
For my tesla coil i have a metal rod i drive into the ground to act as coil earth.
(i only run my tesla coil outside, so i have easy access to the dirt for this).
When running something inside the house mains earth is really all you have access too.