Earth bonding and light fixture replacement

I've had a couple of ceilings replaced on insurance after escape of water. The insurance company appointed general contractors who have been project managing the repairs, and the general contractors sent out a (further subcontracted) electrician to replace 5 light fittings which had to be removed for the ceiling replacement and decoration.

The electrician took it upon himself to poke around the system, and decided the house earth bonding is not up to current specs. Specifically, the bonding to the mains water is 6mm sq rather than 10mm sq. He then tried to get me to agree to pay him 350 pounds to upgrade the cable (and split the lighting circuit since there are two conductors going into one breaker on the consumer unit, on the breaker of the circuit which he will replace lights on), and regards this work as necesasry under Part P before any other work can be done.

The electricians verbal position is, as I understand it: "prevoious contractors bodged it, house is really dangerous, can't put the lights up, most other electricians wouldn't touch the job so I'm doing you a favour, insurance company wont pay, better just agree to pay me my reasonable fee now so we can get you sorted, I can fit you in next Tuesday but then I'm really busy and it will take ages so you ought to agree now". This was after I called his bluff on a number of attempts to get even more work out of me, e.g. "ceiling roses should only have one cable going into them" and "someone drilled into your main fuse; the earth should be nowhere near there so obviously your earth is shorted to the mains"(!).

I suspect the main fuse and earth bonding to the water pipes (which is about a 5m run, currently through the ceilings and walls), was probably to specification when the house was built in 1979, and hasn't been touched since then. The bonding to the gas main has been worked on more recently, and now has two separate cables, both of which look about 6mm sq; I assume this was an attempt to get the total conductor area to 10mm sq.

The only tricky part of the actual work I want done, i.e. simply replacing the lights which had been removed, is that I'd like to fit feature lights where there were previously pendants from ceiling roses, and one of the ceiling roses has four cables (circuit in, circuit out, two switches), and it looks a bit tricky (and against regs?) to screw 2+ conductors into each terminal block point supplied with the new light fixture.

People seem to like to give views in this group, so my questions:

  1. Is it a legal requirement to ensure earth bonding is up to current specifications before any electrical work can be done on the property? (I've had other regulated electricians doing other work since 2005 who have not commented, and also since 2005 the electricity supplier replaced the meter). 2. Is it within current regs to leave the ceiling rose fitted and mount a light fixture on top of it? There should be no problem mechanically securing both the ceiling rose and the new fixture. The ceiling rose would end up inside the light fixture, with a good few mm of clearance from the metal body of the light fixture. Obviously the new metal fixture has to be earthed.
  2. The lights to be replaced are in the lounge, except for one ceiling strip light in the kitchen. I'm somewhat confused by Part P as to whether replacing a light fitting within the kitchen requires LABC declaaration and certification. I'd have no particular concern fitting these lights myself, but if this does require statutory paperwork I'd probably hire a (qualified and registered) friend to, at the very least, check my work.

Thanks,

Dickon

Reply to
Dickon Reed
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Interesting question, which i'd love to know the answer to !

If the "new" work requires any rewiring of circuits, i'd guess part P would come into play, and any and all remedial work would have to be paid for by the insurance company to comply with current regulations.

Otherwise, it sounds like he's a chancer on the make.

Reply to
Colin Wilson

regulations.

Why not put the facts to the insurance co., and get them to sort out their contractor?

AWEM

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

On 19 Oct 2008 20:47:24 +0100 (BST) someone who may be Dickon Reed wrote this:-

Possibly desirable to do, depending on the type of earthing system provided to the building. A proper price for this will be somewhat less than you have been quoted, but does depend on the building.

He is talking round objects. As many conductors as can be safely fitted may be connected to a protective device. Indeed the usual drawings show three conductors being connected to the protective device of a ring final circuit.

High pressure sales technique. Just say no.

That's the best lie I have heard for a while.

Your main fuse, or the company's main fuse?

If your house is fitted with a TNC-S earthing system then the earth cable will indeed be "shorted to the mains", it is connected to the neutral conductor in a fitting on the incoming cable and then continues as a protective earth and neutral conductor to the sub- station.

Reply to
David Hansen

At least one ceiling rose will need replacing, since it was broken when a contractor took down the old ceiling. This rose has a single cable from the lighting circuit as well as a switch cable. Since the contractors admitted responsibiltiy for breaking the rose it does muddy the waters further. :)

Whether that counts as rewiring or simply replacement of the light fitting is unclear to me, so I'd expect tradesmen involved to try and get as much work as possible out of the job. I don't expect any need to replace existing wiring.

Dickon

Reply to
Dickon Reed

Hi,

You pack quite a bit in here and we can't see exactly what your house looks like, so the following is offered in good faith but might miss some subtle point, so please don't act solely on this!

Dickon Reed coughed up some electrons that declared:

Addressed below...

Re. lights: If the two conductors are different branches of the same lighting circuit, there's nothing wrong with this. Unless he feels your circuit is overloaded or there is something less obvious going on?... Am I understanding this correctly? Remember, we can't see your system, so any comment given is at some risk of misunderstanding.

I would advise: get a second opinion, preferably from someone who comes with a recommendation.

I assume by this that your leccy meter, water stopcock and gas meter are 5m apart?

Might help if you could explain the run and distances between the leccy meter and gas meter, and leccy meter and water stop c*ck. Does your gas pipe run externally after the meter, getting closer to the electricty meter?

How hard is it really to thread a new bit of 10mm2 though? Are the clamps accessible?

Personally, the two bits of 6mm2 aren't exactly by the book (well On Site Guide) but if they are similar in length and both terminated correctly, you do have an effective 12mm2 of conductor to the gas. Judgement call by anyone working on your system, but it doesn't sound dangerous to me.

It is considered good practise (more or less essential) to ensure the integrity of the main equipotential bonding before fiddling with anything else and I think pretty much any professional will want to do that first. But I question the amounts quoted unless the cable run really is dire.

It's hard to envisage. The question to ask you is "would it constitute good workmanship?". Are you intending to keep the rose cover on or mount the metal lamp base over the rose base (with terminals) only? Will the wires be squidged? Any chance of the metal lamp fitting coming into contact with live parts? Photos could help.

I've rather lost track of the wording of Part P - I've been diverting all my brain juice to cable calcs and the IEE Regs (the bit that matters IMO) of late. Sure someone will be able to answer this soon.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

David Hansen coughed up some electrons that declared:

How did I miss that one. Anyway, agreed, the original claim is total and utter rubbish.

Would have thought something would have gone bang (quite a big bang).

Most[1] people don't have a main fuse as such, though they might have a main RCD or a main isolator.

[1] People who stick their consumer units too far from the meter (> 3m in my case ) might have an extra 63 or 80 or 100A submain fuse though, because I'm one of them.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim S

It sounds like you've been (rightly) alerted to this guy by his high pressure sales technique. He's playing on your (percieved) fears of electricity and of the rules. He's talking bullshit.

A general principle of the regs is that progressive improvements in the standards are not retrospective. There is never a requirement to bring existing installations up to the new spec. That said you would naturally expect to repair an obviously defective installation anyway wouldn't you? But it's not a requirement.

The one wire in a ceiling rose thing is simply bollocks. Ceiling roses are designed to act as a loop-in point in a lighting circuit - that's why they are designed the way they are! Having two conductors into one "hole" as you have two switches is a bit of a pain by it's not illegal and it's not going to electrocute you or burn your ouse down. I can see no problem with having the ceiling rose enclosed in a fitting. Maybe your electrician would care to cite the reg which he thinks that contravenes, in fact that's a good idea generally - call his bluff and ask him to quote the applicable reg for each of the claimed contraventions.

My advice would be to suggest that do what he's being employed to or refuse to do it and leave the site.

Reply to
Calvin

No, I don't think there's anything subtle. The circuit is the downstairs lighting circuit; it branches at the consumer unit. No one is suggesting it is overloaded. The electrician is suggesting that the branch must not be done at the consumer unit and they need to be going to separate breakers (there would be space in the consumer unit for a few more breakers). Also one cable has conductor which are a little larger than one might expect on a lighting circit. I suspect the larger conductor was an addition made by a previous owner to extend the lighting circuit to an old conservatory, but it isn't straightforward to trace the cable.

The gas and electricity meters are both in the garage, about one meter apart.

The water stopcock is in another part of the house. The existing earth cable run is plastered into the wall, presumably in conduit. The obvious alternative route would involve running out through the garage and then in through a wall, which looks like a pretty easy run.

The ceiling rose cover would remain in place, and I think there's plenty of space so that nothing would get squished.

Dickon

Reply to
Dickon Reed

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:57:57 +0100 someone who may be Tim S wrote this:-

It is a good one, isn't it. Presumably a one-person attempt to prevent neat and easy to modify loop-in wiring and substitute junction boxes scattered at random locations around the building.

Obviously ceiling roses should only have one flexible cable coming out of them and going to the luminaire, unless made specially for more than one flexible cable (I have never seen one, but they are mentioned), but that is a separate issue.

I too am somewhat at a loss about the new luminaires mounted over/under the ceiling roses. Depending on the particular fittings the cowboy may have a point about this.

Reply to
David Hansen

Absolute nonsense. Assuming the breaker is of a size to protect the smallest cable you can have as many as you want.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

No, it is perfectly acceptable to branch a circuit at origin in the CU. You can even take a spur from a ring circuit at the CU if you want.

Ask him to give the section number in BS7671 to support his claim if in doubt!

Its not uncommon to have circuits wired in 1.0mm^2 or 1.5mm^2. YOu may have a combination of both.

Note that upgrading the main bonding is not a notifiable event, so you could DIY this if you wanted.

In effect it is no different from using the rose as a convenient junction box or set of terminal blocks.

Reply to
John Rumm

It sounds to me like he's re-using the existing cable, and simply changing the ceiling rose to me - while I haven't actually read part P as far as I am aware, like-for-like in-situ replacement of equipment (sockets / switches etc) are permissable.

If he needs to start lifting floorboards and replacing entire cable runs it becomes another matter, and would (AIUI) need to be part P compliant.

Reply to
Colin Wilson

Even extensions to existing circuits are minor works from a part P perspective (unless in a special location). Like for like replacements are ok everywhere - even in a special location.

Reply to
John Rumm

Having just done battle with various kitchen fitters, electricians and gasmen, my take would be to point out that you aren't employing him and if he's got any issues about not being able to do the work he should take it up with the contractor and not you.

Reply to
matthelliwell

Hear, hear. Point him directly at the subcontractor. It's not your problem.

Reply to
Huge

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