I found a nice easy second job for my Elecsa assessment. A mate wants an outside light fitting in his porch. He had a new consumer unit fitted last year, all circuits are RCBO protected, and he had a load of other work done at the same time. He's also had some other minor work done since then by a different company. So I expected the existing installation to be in reasonably good shape.
I went round to have a look at his porch and while I was there I had a quick look in the cupboard under the stairs just to check that it all looked ok. My first impression was that the MET looked a bit empty (see attached photo). It was a bit dark and to start with I thought there was no earthing conductor but then, once I got hold of a torch, I found that there actually is an earthing conductor but it is very thin and very black. In fact I think that it's the black core out of a bit of 2.5mm T&E!
![[ElectriciansForums.net] 2.5mm earthing conductor from TN-S supply](https://electricians.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/data/attachments/4/4836-b303a2edb160fb7a63fc6691ef06cc19.jpg "[ElectriciansForums.net] 2.5mm earthing conductor from TN-S supply")
Now I'm expecting to find stuff like this all the time, and worse, but what surprises me is that he has an EIC for the consumer unit change, upgrading the main bonding and the other work he had done at the same time, and a minor works certificate (from a big national company) for some other work, and neither of them even mentions the fact the the earthing conductor is far too small. In fact they have ticked a box on the minor work certificate to say that the earthing conductor is not undersized. Is this odd or am I just being naive?
So do I have to fix this problem before I can sign off the minor work? I know that normally you don't need to upgrade earthing and bonding for minor works but does that assume that it at least stood some chance of conforming to the regs at some point?
Obviously I would like to fix this, but I think that maybe it's the suppliers responsibility, is that correct? What's the best thing to do - make a note on the cert and contact the supplier to get them to sort it, or just fit a new 16mm conductor?
I went round to have a look at his porch and while I was there I had a quick look in the cupboard under the stairs just to check that it all looked ok. My first impression was that the MET looked a bit empty (see attached photo). It was a bit dark and to start with I thought there was no earthing conductor but then, once I got hold of a torch, I found that there actually is an earthing conductor but it is very thin and very black. In fact I think that it's the black core out of a bit of 2.5mm T&E!
Now I'm expecting to find stuff like this all the time, and worse, but what surprises me is that he has an EIC for the consumer unit change, upgrading the main bonding and the other work he had done at the same time, and a minor works certificate (from a big national company) for some other work, and neither of them even mentions the fact the the earthing conductor is far too small. In fact they have ticked a box on the minor work certificate to say that the earthing conductor is not undersized. Is this odd or am I just being naive?
So do I have to fix this problem before I can sign off the minor work? I know that normally you don't need to upgrade earthing and bonding for minor works but does that assume that it at least stood some chance of conforming to the regs at some point?
Obviously I would like to fix this, but I think that maybe it's the suppliers responsibility, is that correct? What's the best thing to do - make a note on the cert and contact the supplier to get them to sort it, or just fit a new 16mm conductor?
