On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 19:21:30 +0000, Pedge wrote:

I recently made a post on the Live/Neutral crossed wiring I found on a
kitchen socket. I am awaiting on a socket tester before I carry on to
correct the socket if need be.

Today I was looking at another socket which has it's own seperate circuit
back to the fusebox and is also located in the kitchen but on the opposite
side. The earth wire doesn't go back to the fusebox but to a copper pipe.
I followed the pipe and found another earth connector further along where
the earth wire connects to another socket. This socket belongs to a 2nd
circuit which has an earth cable going back to the fusebox.

My question is, should each circuit have an earth cable go back to the
consumer fusebox or can it be done like above?

That sounds rather odd. Yes, earths would normally be provided as
part of the cable feeding that circuit in a domestic setup.

Do you mean that the cable feeding that socket is *not* twin+earth
or do you mean it is twin+earth but for some bizarre reason the earth core
is not used?

The wire going to the pipe is probably intended to be bonding. It must
not be the primary means of earthing a socket[1]. A reason why that would
be bad:

Suppose that someone replaces a bit of pipe upstream of your earth bond
with plastic pipe. Your earth is now gone. Now your appliance plugged in
that socket develops a fault - bing, 240V on the remaining copper pipe,
sink etc.

So you're in a worse position than if you had no earth at all.

That's just one of a million reasons it's bad.

Are you sure that there isn't another earth wire in there from the cable?

I would agree with Lurch so some extent - it sounds like your house has a
few oddities which may not be very safe. I would recommend at least having
an inspection done (proper one, with earth/insulation/RCD tests). That
will also pick up some things that you can't see by eye.

Try your electricity supply company - I used Seeboard for one such test +
cert when I sold my flat. 18 months ago, about 120 quid or so.

Tim

[1] Although the Seeboard appointed inspector did note in the
exceptions box that I hadn't got full 16th edition compliance (well, I
wouldn't, flat was built to the 15th) in that one lighting pull switch,
all plastic, did not have an earth present. He suggested I bonded one to
the nearby water pipe. Needless to say I didn't bother.