Bonding of Water pipes (plastic incomes)

[newfutile]

Just wondered what opinion people have of bonding of short lengths of copper water pipes, this is in the communal area of flats .
above the copper it goes back into plastic and appear to enter the building in a blue plastic pipe

 

[JBW175]

waste of cable, no need to bond.

 

[loz2754]

Looks potentially dangerous to me.
The reason I say that is it looks as though the pipes go to 3 different metered supplies, which are all connected together.
None of them are likely to bring in an earth potential as they are supplied by a plastic pipe coming out of the ground.
But as they are connected to each other, an earth fault that could cause the potential of the water pipe to rise in one property, would also cause the potential to rise on the pipes in the other properties.

Edit: scratch that. I should have read the post correctly. It seems the pipes go back to plastic after the copper. In which case there is no need for any bonding at all, but it's not potentially dangerous.

 

[cliffed]

Had the Niceic man last week,& asked about that,& utilmately the cooper pipework coming of the plastic.
He said why would you earth that there’s no reason to earth that,where would the earth come from on the copper.
Well from central heating,Immersion heater white goods etc.
Old school sparkies would earth anything back in the day.

 

[GBDamo]

Back in the day there seemed to be an surplus in the supply of 6mm copper G/Y cable.

Less facetious, the proportion of conducting incoming gas/water mains supplies was much higher and the regs were written to reflect the norm, it became easier just to assume they were extraneous and bond everything and without RCDs , supplementary bond everything else.

No need to stop and think, bond it all and let God decide.

Anything built in the last 30-40 years has switched to plastic mains incomers along with a significant proportion of upgrades and RCDs removing the liklihood of extraneous paths and the necessity for bondage.

So now the norm is not to bond unless required which forces the spark to understand the reasoning and theory behind bonding as they now have to justify its omission.

A lot of old sparks will still bond and even supplementary bond as they never had to understand the requirements, they just needed to know it needed doing and how, not the why.

The problem arises when one of these older sparks is supervising a new spark who hasn't bonded and knows it was not required.

This is where their pride tests your diplomacy and technical knowledge, good luck there!

 

[cliffed]

Back in the day there seemed to be an surplus in the supply of 6mm copper G/Y cable.

Less facetious, the proportion of conducting incoming gas/water mains supplies was much higher and the regs were written to reflect the norm, it became easier just to assume they were extraneous and bond everything and without RCDs , supplementary bond everything else.

No need to stop and think, bond it all and let God decide.

Anything built in the last 30-40 years has switched to plastic mains incomers along with a significant proportion of upgrades and RCDs removing the liklihood of extraneous paths and the necessity for bondage.

So now the norm is not to bond unless required which forces the spark to understand the reasoning and theory behind bonding as they now have to justify its omission.

A lot of old sparks will still bond and even supplementary bond as they never had to understand the requirements, they just needed to know it needed doing and how, not the why.

The problem arises when one of these older sparks is supervising a new spark who hasn't bonded and knows it was not required.

This is where their pride tests your diplomacy and technical knowledge, good luck there!

Yea agree,but with the 18th & the new & older generation,we now all know not too bond,& the reasoning behind this.
Its took all these years to realise the dangers involved in bonding nearly everything possible.
Remembering back in the 80’s we were using 2 boxes of bonding clips per house,main & supplementary bonding,the joys of getting under the sink top,looking for the top hat to fix the earth onto.

 

[GBDamo]

Yea agree,but with the 18th & the new & older generation,we now all know not too bond,& the reasoning behind this.
Its took all these years to realise the dangers involved in bonding nearly everything possible.
Remembering back in the 80’s we were using 2 boxes of bonding clips per house,main & supplementary bonding,the joys of getting under the sink top,looking for the top hat to fix the earth onto.

Very true but, there's knowing the reasons and being able to confidently and competently explain them.

A lot of people fear being challenged so go the belt and braces route.

 

[Ian1981]

Yep everyone bonds the gas on a new build despite the fact it’s a yellow non conductive pipe supplied in the ground but they see copper in the meter box and bond it anyway because that’s how it’s always been done.

Even more laughable is when bottled gas gets bonded....?‍?‍

 

[cliffed]

Yep everyone bonds the gas on a new build despite the fact it’s a yellow non conductive pipe supplied in the ground but they see copper in the meter box and bond it anyway because that’s how it’s always been done.

Even more laughable is when bottled gas gets bonded....?‍?‍

Yea good point..it’s always metal into house with gas.

 

[Selfmade]

I agree if it comes out of the ground as plastic and goes back to plastic before entering the individual flats it does not need bonding. I would say if it goes into individual flats as metal, it needs bonding even if it's plastic where it comes out of the ground. I'm pretty sure the regs say bond it if it's liable to introduce a potential, normally earth potential. Note the 'normally'. So if it could introduce a potential from another flat - maybe from a different phase - it still needs bonding.

 

[DefyG]

Even more laughable is when bottled gas gets bonded...

Bottled or Calor cylinder?
Had situations where Calor cylinder (Above and below gound) has used copper pipe (below ground) to supply house but not with freestanding gas bottles.

As for the OP's question, agree bonding is not required.

 

[SJD]

Disabled toilet, bonding to both ends of the metal rail that surrounds the cistern pipe, ... perhaps it is to guard against Electromagnetic Effects?

 

[DPG]

Disabled toilet, bonding to both ends of the metal rail that surrounds the cistern pipe, ... perhaps it is to guard against Electromagnetic Effects?

That is amazing!

 

[DefyG]

bonding to both ends of the metal rail that surrounds the cistern pipe, ...

When you are a numpty, you do as you are told by a higher ranking Numpty!

 

[cliffed]

Disabled toilet, bonding to both ends of the metal rail that surrounds the cistern pipe, ... perhaps it is to guard against Electromagnetic Effects?

Rough.