Earthing through plastic pipe
On Thursday, 13 February 2020 22:35:57 UTC, TimW wrote:
On 13/02/2020 22:24, tabbypurr wrote:
On Thursday, 13 February 2020 21:59:54 UTC, TimW wrote:
There was an ancient (1950s) steel pipe bringing mains water into my
house under the front room and then up in the cup'd under the stairs.
There there was a stop cock and it went into copper pipe and onto the
copper a large sleeved earth wire was connected with a tag on saying "Do
Not Remove".
The steel pipe was leaking so I have taken it all out and replaced with
blue plastic pipe. Was looking at the earth arrangement and wondering if
I need to earth the wiring in another way, into the ground or something,
or are we still earthed through the water in the plastic pipe out to the
outside world?
TW
Water is NOT an adequate earth. An old electrical install with no earth is not safe.
So what would be an adequate earth?
TW
It depends on your install. Maybe an earth rod plus RCDs/RCBOs on all circuits. If your install uses the waterpipe as the main earth - which we can't be sure of at this point - it may have no RCD protection. Recommend posting a clear pic of the fusebox on here, plus the supplier's incomer.
As has been said it's also possible it's a modern install and the connection is just an equipotential bond. We don't know yet. The seriousness of having no earth and an old fusebox means show us pics without delay. Yes there may be earthing elsewhere too.
NT
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