Boxed in a bath with T&G yesterday. Fitted the side panel & was measuring for the end panel when I saw this
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earth wire screwed into the wall.
Whilst boxing in the side I noticed earth bonding cables connected to the bath feed pipes, but didn't pay much attention to them. What would be the purpose of an earth cable fixed to a brick wall?
As an aside, I often see the copper feeds to sinks, basins etc earth bonded, with flexibles connecting to the taps. Would this earth the taps?
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When I was thinking about changing my 3 way fuse box many years ago I followed an earth wire heading downwards and found it terminated wrapped round a rusty nail pushed into a joint in the stonework. So I obtained a
4 foot copper earth rod and hammered it into the ground (the floor was up for replacement at the time).
It wasn't until some time later that I found that there was also an earth running straight through the wall to the meter box and I am still not sure whether the earth rod is necessary (or even counter productive).
It's just a primitive belief in earth magic. Almost a hundred years ago, people were doing much the same by "earthing" their wireless sets to the nearest aspidistra pot.
The wall's green, the right colour for earth - surely thats enough? :) I don't suppose its an earth wall? Someone really didn't know what they were doing.
Equipotential bonding is not meant to connect to earth, its meant to create an equipotential zone, meaning that whether things are eartherd or not (and normally something is), whatever happens to the metalwork it will all be at the same voltage.
In terms of safety benefit per cost it might save one or 2 lives per century, making it not much more use than earthing the aspidistra plant, but 16th requires it on new installs. I gather the 17th will cease to.
No, you've got it all wrong! The soil in the aspidistra pot *is* the earth connection, because it's always like totally connected with the Mother Planet. House bricks are deeply aware of this too.
The "earthing" of the taps is irrelevant. If the copper pipe work that supplies the flexis is correctly bonded then the taps will be fine. There is no way the taps can become live.
Your guess is as good as mine, unless it's connected to any structural metalwork buried in the wall (unlikely in this case I'd have thought). Whatever its purpose, the connection isn't compliant with wiring regs since it's not labelled with the essential words "safety electrical connection - do not remove".
1) Terminology: don't talk about "earth bonding" it just confuses the distinction between earthing and (equipotential) bonding:
- earthing is about connecting the metalwork of electrical equipment to earth. It reduces shock risk by reducing the /duration/ of dangerous touch voltage resulting from a fault, by blowing a fuse or tripping an MCB or RCD within a prescribed time;
- bonding is a more passive measure to reduce the /magnitude/ of touch voltage arising between both electrical (exposed-) and non-electrical (extraneous-) conductive-parts, or any combination thereof.
2) Taps don't need to be earthed or bonded, only the metal pipework leading to them if it's able to import a voltage from outside the location. In a bath/shower room you need to bond incoming metal pipework and all electrical circuit earths. Short copper tails in a primarily-plastic plumbing installation don't need to be bonded, and nor do basins and sinks that aren't in a bath/shower room.
When boxing-in under baths, basins etc. remember that the bonding connections are supposed to remain accessible for electrical inspection and testing (unless soldered).
The 17th ed. regs (BS 7671:2008) do remove the the requirement for supplementary bonding in bathrooms, _but_only_ if all circuits feeding loads in the bathroom, including lighting, have 30 mA protection _and_ the installation's main bonding is present and correct. It is not a licence to remove or ignore the supplementary bonding in existing installations.
Well thats true of course - but being disconnected form mother earth makes it feel out of balance, so it needs earthing to avoid falling over and dying. Nothing to do with need for sun & water, those are just foolish old ideas.
I wonder what the capacitance to earth is for a pith ball the size of an aspidistra, and thus whether it might have made any diference on medium wave. Fraid I'm a bit rusty on pith ball capacitor formulae.
I guess on a dc mains set the plant may have been positively charged, thu attracting more dust and any nutrients in it too :)
But if the connections are soldered and not accessible, how would any electrical inspector *know* that they are soldered and therefore don't need to be accessible...?
Just following this up - what I was getting at was that the plaster on that wall looks as old as Methusalah, and probably predates the regualtory requirement for bonding, no?
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