I have lived in my current house, which was built in the mid 1970s, for around twenty years. The water pipes have never been earth bonded.
I recently had my old fuse box replaced with a consumer unit and, as part of the job, the electrician fed an earth cable through into the downstairs cloakroom, where the mains water comes into the house, and bonded it onto the incoming cold water copper pipe. He also 'cross bonded' all the copper piping below my new combi which is installed in the attached garage.
It was not until he had left that it suddenly occurred to me that 12 months ago I had completely refurbished my bathroom, removing the old airing cupboard and replacing it with a shower cubicle. Most of the hot and cold water pipes in the bathroom required re-routing and so I replaced them all with plastic piping. The incoming cold water supply, and the hot water supply from the combi in the garage, enter the house via the downstairs cloakroom, and then go up into the bathroom, and from there down into the kitchen.
Because I have replaced the hot and cold piping in the bathroom with plastic piping, there is no earthing continuity between the bonding point and the kitchen (and no easy way to by-pass the plastic piping in the bathroom now either!)
So, how important is it that the water pipes in the kitchen are earth bonded - and is there an alternative to getting an earth bonding back to the consumer unit from the kitchen?
Ret.