what type of earth do i have

[gazz]

i have no reason to know this other than i'm curious... just been reading the post about 2002 regs and earths.

think i have a TN-C-S.

armoured cable comes through the kitchen floor, goes up the wall a bit where the black bitumin like coating is removed to reveal the armour stands, around that is an earth bonding strap made of a braided type of material, which is connected to a bakelite connection block,

the inner wires of the cable go on up, (armour stops just past the earth bond) the red one goes to the main fuse, the black one goes to the same junction block that the earth strap is connected to.

then from there they go to the meter, economy 7 time switch, and to the CU, CU's earth is connected to the neuteral/earth connector block, as is the earth bonding for the kitchen pipes.

Got another question too..... were on economy 7 at the mo, going to switch to ebico soon and dont want E7 as we never use any lecky at night, want a single tarrif, anyone know if they come along and remove the E7 time switch, or just add together the day and night time rates recorded on the meter?

reason im asking is the meter is one of those new ones, the size of a paper back book if that, and the time switch is a bloody great big black thing the size of an old mechanical meter (made in 1967 it says) if possible i'd like the time switch out of there as the position of the lecky stuff is in the back of a kitchen cupboard, and it protrudes into the cupboard taking up space (have a wooden cover over it, but that could be made a lot smaller with the timer gone, giving more space in the cupboard)

[Tim S]

gazz coughed up some electrons that declared:

Sounds more like TN-S to me (that's earth (Terra) Neutral Separated IIRC.

Technically, only an enquiry to the supplier will be reliable - some TN-S setups look just like TN-C-S and in both cases, there may be a fault which lead to the green/yellow wire being ignored in favour of a local rod (TT), although the presence of the rod itself is at least obvious.

Sorry - don't know. Phone call to the network operator or meter operator technical dept, or phone Ebico and see if they know what will happen?

Cheers

Tim

[Andy Wade]

Huh... Under the ESQCR it should be, but the reality seems to be that DNO's records of older installations are often incomplete or just wrong and they'll be unable to answer the question without making a visit, which may be chargeable. Ditto if you want to know what size main fuse is fitted. This is a frequently discussed topic on the IET wiring regs forum.

[Tariff change]

Customer contacts supplier and requests tariff change. Supplier arranges for their meter operating company to change the metering equipment. DNO is not involved. Customer should keep their own records of old and new meter readings, just in case of a billing screw-up (not unknown, check bills carefully). In the case of a change from E7 to general domestic tariff the meter will be changed to single-rate and any time-switch equipment will be removed (IMLE, YMMV).