Extending Earth Wire For Sink

[JGralton]

We have recently moved our sink, the current earth wire is no longer long enough. What should I use to connect a new piece of earth wire to the old piece in order to extend the earth to the new sink, and save replacing the whole earth wire back to the consumer unit??

Any help appreciated,

Cheers,

James.

[Ian Stirling]

In a similar solution, I soldered the wires, crimped them in a brass tube, then screwed the tube flatter using a 30A choc-bloc connector.

Overkill? :)

Seriously though. Soldering, or crimping are both acceptable. Choc block connectors are not AIUI. You should probably check that it is in fact properly connected in the first place to the CU.

[Stephen Dawson]

Out of interest, where is the sink??

Because if i is in a kitchen there is no requirement to bond it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Sinks don't have to be earthed. Indeed plenty of opinion says it's a bad idea.

[Lobster]

Where is this 'wire' actually running?

There is a requirement to bond the incoming mains water supply to the earth back at the consumer unit; is that what you mean - ie, is the main stopcock under the sink? Seems unlikely that would have moved...

If you talking about supplementary bonding, that is connection of the metal sink to the metal pipework feeding the taps; again, unlikely they would have moved relative to each other. Also, not compulsory and believed to be a Bad Thing by some, as has been pointed out.

David

[JGralton]

Hi all,

Thanks for the comments and sorry for the delayed reply have been busy fitting the new kitchen.

I decided to run a new earth wire in the end back to the consumer unit. The old earth was attached to the cold water supply pipe and the sink. I assumed I would have to earth the Hot, Cold and sink. Is this no longer the case? Bad idea?

The main stop c*ck for the cold mains water is not by the sink it is under the stairs although I am not 100% sure if it is earther there or not (am at work now so can't check).

I was going to bond the hot pipe, cold pipe and sink are some/any of these required.

Thanks for the help,

James

[Ben Blaukopf]

You need to bond the cold supply pipe with a 10mm wire (assuming a standard electrical supply) back to the main earth block at the meter. This is main bonding. By cold supply pipe, I mean the rising main, i.e. the cold water pipe, within 600mm (I think, or something like that) of where it enters the house (and it sounds like this is under the stairs).

You do not need to main bond anything else. If you do, then at best, you'll just confuse the next person to look at the installation.

You can then add supplementary bonding at the kitchen sink, which means bonding the all the metal objects together - i.e. hot, cold, sink. Section 4.6 of the On Site Guide says that you do not need to do this.

Ben

[Mathew Newton]

[Ian]

My incoming mains water supply is a plastic pipe.

Ian

[Ben Blaukopf]

D'oh! You do not need to bond anything else out of the subset you have described. But you need to bond the gas pipe. And, apparently, metal waste pipes, if you have any...

Ben

[Ben Blaukopf]

Then you bond at the nearest copper point. You don't need to bond if your internal AND supply pipework is plastic.

Ben

[JGralton]

Thanks for all the comments and help.

James