I'm making some changes in the bathroom - one is switching over copper to plastic pipe.
What do I do about the trailing earth bonding arrangements that are left? Just tuck them under the floorboards? Or do the exposed metal bits (taps and radiator) need to be wired up to these earths?
Seems a pretty thorough principle - the radiator and taps are effectively metal lumps screwed to something, with no possible path to anything electrical. Or is it to do with the conductivity of water?
You say no possible path, but what if one of the bracket screws has almost penetrated a concealed cable?
However, if it does break through and go "live" then as long as the circuit is on an RCD you should be safe. One of the reasons I have
*slight* reservations about the current principle of having unprotected circuits to prevent spurious trips taking out the freezer when you are on holiday.
You could, although abandoned wires are better disconnected at the other end if that's easy. When forced to abandon a cable / wire its generally best to leave the exposed ends terminated in some way so that they can't come into contact with anything (i.e. into a chock box or similar)
There is no requirement (and no point) in bonding bits of isolated metalwork.
The question you need ask yourself each time, is "can this bit of metal introduce a voltage into this room?" (even where that voltage is 0V or earth potential). If the answer is no (e.g. because its not connected to anything conductive that leaves the room), then its a waste of time bonding it. Likewise there is no point in bonding things that already have their path of conduction bonded - so a metal bath where the incoming pipes connected to it are already bonded etc.
You can't rely on bath taps making a good electrical connection to a bath. Enamel doesn't conduct and the plastic washers you use don't conduct. Unless someone has welded a stud on its going to be very hard to make a reliable connection that will last years.
And if both the hot and cold pipes are bonded then it matters even less as they are the only thing that could introduce a potential (excluding throwing a hair drier or similar into the bath) and a metal waste pipe.
Can the bath in isolation bring a potential into the room? So long as the pipes entering the room are bonded, then we don't actually care if the bath is connected to them or floating (electrically!)
I'm actually grateful for the more lax regulation of the 17th. It allows a bit more site related judgement than is possible with prescriptive rules.
My pipes, being chromed and mostly on show would be tricky to bond by the book. Under the bath - OK. However, I'd have to get a wire over to the shaver socket and then onto the bog cistern the other side of the room to do it by the 16th.
In reality, my floor is mostly insulated (tiles on marmox foam panels). The shaver socket is 1m from the bath and the 2 screws are well recessed and hard to touch.
The bog cistern pipe is hard to reach even standing next to it, let alone from the bath (impossible).
The bath is plastic and has a plastic waste.
So all in, if the hot and cold pipes are strapped *somewhere* vaguely nearby (they are, under the stairs) it's almost impossible to set up a situation that would be a material risk.
My shower room that we are about to screed is different - got concrete floor, metal pipes to the shower and you could handle the shaver socket dripping wet (it's a wet room). So I will probably shove SB in there as there's definate merit in doing so. It might not be 100% by the 16th - the clamps will be in the adjacent hall cupboard rather than in the room itself - but the 17th gives me some design freedom. The end effect will be as good as 16th SB in any practical way it could be judged.
I'm a little wary of trying to over prescribe solutions. On one hand, legislating for the worst case/dumbest installer avoids things going wrong with people who don't like to think things through.
OTOH it tends to become a war of rules, rather than the installer understanding what he is actually trying to achieve and applying a perfectly reasonable solution. cf the bonding of every bit of metal in sight when the whole idea was first introduced. Why? Because installers did not actually understand what they were trying to achieve. They saw the "bond metalwork" and blindly applied it to everything.
In theory one can design outside of the regs and mark it as a departure, but it takes a brave man in this rules based world to put his name to it.
Quite - it's difficult to prove which is most durable. I'm a little nervous using it on mains pressure, but hey. I would use copper, but I'm not confident in my soldering skills, and don't like compression joints that much. And plastic is so quick.
Having worked with plastic now a fair bit, I think it's success largely depends on the extent to which pipes are properly supported.
Interesting. I am about to be faced with these decisions. The underfloor heating is all plastic to the manifolds with no hidden couplings. The boiler piping in 22mm will be copper run in insulated sleeving. That leaves service plumbing to bath/toilet/sinks etc. undecided.
I intend to route the plumbing through ducts wherever possible so holes and flexible pipes through joists not hugely helpful.
The creaks from pipe expansion in our current home are noticeable but not really a nuisance.....
Soldering is very easy. Just clean things properly, use a decent flux, and a adequate heat source. And avoid lead free solder. Practise on some scrap first.
Bending the copper pipes neatly is the real skill. But great fun.
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