In article om, Dave
Liquorice wrote:

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 11:16:19 +0100, Mike Clarke wrote:

do I really need to join the two groups?

Only if you want to. The regs are essentially for new installations or
ones that are worked on(?). Everyone doesn't have to go out bonding
things beacuse the regs changed however many moons ago it was.

The house was apparently rewired only a few years ago so I expect it
ought have been bonded at that stage in order to comply. With good earth
continuity and RCD protection I don't think the lack of bonding puts us
at serious risk. It would need a bizarre combination of faults to
produce a significant PD between hot and cold taps without tripping the
RCD. OTOH I feel that it wouldn't harm to get as close to the regs as
reasonably possible.

I was also wondering if it's considered good practice (as opposed to a
regulatory decree) to bond all pipework at the boiler. I suspect there's
some plastic pipework in the cold supply leading to it under the floor,
if this is so then the central heating and hot water pipework are
effectively earthed via the boiler's earth. I'm thinking here in terms
of protecting against a major fault in the boiler combined with the loss
of it's earth connection.

Or am I just being too paranoid?

--
Mike Clarke