Do I need this...

[Muddymike]

...great ugly coil of earth wire and associated clamps bonding an outside tap supply pipe to the overflow pipe from a lavatory cistern? I ask because it just looks so awful in what is otherwise a tidy room. As the cistern overflow pipe is only attached to a china cistern and runs almost immediately back through the wall there seems little chance of it causing a problem. I suppose I could replace the current copper overflow pipe with a plastic one which certainly won't need earth bonding.

Mike

[Ash]

My brother had his house re-wired about 2 or 3 years ago and had loads of earth bonding ugly cables put in all over the place to meet with 'current' regs. This month he's having the bathroom renovated with a walk in shower to replace his bath, a new toilet fitted etc and they've told him that earth bonding has gone out the window since more and more people are now using plastic for their water pipes. He'd have saved a nice chuck of money if he'd had the house re-wired now and he wouldn't have loads of cable and brackets sticking out all over the place.

Ash

[ARWadsworth]

You do not need to supplementary bond in rooms that are not bathrooms or shower rooms. You can remove the cable from the overflow and you are safe.

One small problem may be that you have a rising metal water supply entering the building. It is possible may this may have to be bonded to your CU.

Adam

[Muddymike]

And that could be a problem because...?

Mike

[Ash]

Nobody has got around to changing the regs yet ?

[ARWadsworth]

I suspect that you are mistaking the differences between the 17th edition regs and the 16th edition regs and also forgetting the fact that Muddymike is not working in a bathroom or shower room :-)

Adam

[ARWadsworth]

It would be an extraneous conducive part, and so should be main bonded to your CU. Of course this only applies if the water supply to the toilet is buried underground.

Adam

[Muddymike]

I have never understood what a pipe like this is liable to conduct. It is 18 or less inches long, connects to a cistern via a plastic connector one end, hangs in fresh air the other end and is mostly buried in a wall. Whilst on the subject. Why are bonding earth cables mostly ten times longer than they need be and wound into a fancy coil?

Is it lightening strike the bonding protects me from :-)

Mike

[ARWadsworth]

Sorry. The overflow pipe is not the problem, it need not be bonded at all in your toilet. I was refering to the incoming water supply to the toilet when I mentioned main bonding.

You can remove the unsightly, over long and unnecessary cable.

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