So my mother in law has had BG round to service the boiler and as part of the service they now carry out a check on the earthing.

My mother in law informed me that the BG engineer went round the sockets in the house with a meter and wasn't getting a earth reading at the sockets.

I've gone round and believe it or not there does not appear to be a main earth at the consumer unit. There just appears a live and neutral.

I've got a socket tester and plugged it into a number of sockets and all three lights lit up and sounded to say that live, neutral and earth is present. Obviously I know this is not a reliable way to test for an earth but just trying to explain.

Now I cannot believe that there is no earth to the house. A large extension was built in 2002 and surely something would have been picked up then.

There is no bonding to the gas or the water other than cross bonding between the hot and cold pipes at the sink.

Ill upload some photos in a bit.
 
Can't see where the tails go to. May know more after the mother in law has spoken to the neighbour. I'm assuming that its a TT system. Would I just need the meter number to find out the type of earthing arrangement from the DNO?
 
What did you do. Did you get the DNO in to sort it out. Would it be the DNO's job to provide an earth if there wasn't one. I know years ago did DNO wasn't required to.

I knocked the wall down and got 1 of the meters removed, I'd bought the 2 with the intentions of making 1 larger property.

Earth stayed clamped to the lead water main (1978)

Re you problem, the external earth wire is either an old GPO /BT Shared service / Party line earth or it's going to (or maybe rotted away) the Water stop tap under the cover with "W" on it
 
What did you do. Did you get the DNO in to sort it out. Would it be the DNO's job to provide an earth if there wasn't one. I know years ago did DNO wasn't required to.

I knocked the wall down and got 1 of the meters removed, I'd bought the 2 with the intentions of making 1 larger property.

Earth stayed clamped to the lead water main (1978)

Re you problem, the external earth wire is either an old GPO /BT Shared service / Party line earth or it's going to (or maybe rotted away) the Water stop tap under the cover with "W" on it

You may be onto something there Snow. My bro in law seems to thinks its something to do with BT. Do you know what the shared service party line earth was used for? He thinks it goes to a disused box in the house.

Ill have to lift the W cover. Surely that can't be the earth wire and using the Water as the earth rod??? Or perhaps so?
 
On the early shared service phone lines the earth was used to signal to the exchange which of the party's on the shared line required a line,without this it was possible for the other party sharing the line to listen in when a call was being made.
 
Ok cheers guys. That wire does sound like it may be the redundant shared BT line earth. Hopefully will find out more from the neighbour then will get a spark in with a MFT to test the Main earthing and bonding to the gas and water.
 
When I have rang DNOs in the past they always say they have no records of the earthing arrangement and it is upto me to find out. This has happened on a couple of occasions only though. Next doors earthing may be completely different to yours also, so don't use that as an indication of what your earth should be.

Get a spark in to look at/test etc. New TT earth and main bonding may only cost 300 squid. Obviously that amount is variable depending on, ahem, variables!!

Money well spent in my opinion.
 
She is going to ask the neighbour to see if they know where their earth is.

Its frustrating as I want to be able to provide some answers and know that's its say but I don't have the necessary tools to check or test. If it needs a rod putting in and a piece of 16mm running in and then 2 x 10mm running to the gas and water then I would be happy to do it but I'm not Part P. I take it certs would be required for earthing??
and if its a TT then why would it require a 16mm G/Y?

caus it shows it in the OSG?....lol
 
If available, get the DNO to PME the supply, and you can help out by installing the main bonding cables between the MET to the water and gas pipes!! ...There you go, All Sorted!! lol!!

Mind £269 + Vat is a real con job on the BG side of things, for what amounts to be about 15 minutes work, if they change nothing in the way of service head....
 
If available, get the DNO to PME the supply, and you can help out by installing the main bonding cables between the MET to the water and gas pipes!! ...There you go, All Sorted!! lol!!

Mind £269 + Vat is a real con job on the BG side of things, for what amounts to be about 15 minutes work, if they change nothing in the way of service head....
is it?

any supplementary bonding required here?
 
Thought i read in one of the OP posts that a bit of cross bonding had been done. Seeing as the installation has those wonderful RCD thingy bobs, why would it need supplementary bonding If the main bonding is in place?? ...Or am i missing or misread something here??
 
Thought i read in one of the OP posts that a bit of cross bonding had been done. Seeing as the installation has those wonderful RCD thingy bobs, why would it need supplementary bonding If the main bonding is in place?? ...Or am i missing or misread something here??
its probably my fault eng....i will just not read through threads fully before posting...lol..
 
besides, if it was an RCD board...but crossbonding was already in place....still no need to remove it would there...call it an `insurance policy`....
 
That's right Hawk. There is only cross bonding at the sink. No sign of main bonding from the MET to gas or water.

Ill find out from the DNO what earthing arrangement there is; get a spark with test equipment in and go from there. I'm not prepared to let my mother in law fork out any money based on a BG heating engineer walking around with a glorified plug in tester to do the earthing.
 
You may be onto something there Snow. My bro in law seems to thinks its something to do with BT. Do you know what the shared service party line earth was used for? He thinks it goes to a disused box in the house.

Ill have to lift the W cover. Surely that can't be the earth wire and using the Water as the earth rod??? Or perhaps so?

Re phone;

Shared service had the same pair of cables going to each of 2 houses.
To initiate the outgoing call the earth and 1 line was used, but speech was over both lines, each house used a different line.

To receive a call, the ring voltage occoured between earth and 1 line and speech then over both lines.

Only 1 house could speak at once, but the other could listen in.

(or very similar to that as it's over 46 years since I did basic Telephony training at the GPO).

Re the water earth, yes it could
 
=snowhead;914335]Re phone;

Shared service had the same pair of cables going to each of 2 houses.
To initiate the outgoing call the earth and 1 line was used, but speech was over both lines, each house used a different line.

To receive a call, the ring voltage occoured between earth and 1 line and speech then over both lines.

Only 1 house could speak at once, but the other could listen in.

(or very similar to that as it's over 46 years since I did basic Telephony training at the GPO).

Re the water earth, yes it could

That's pretty much exactly how the old GPO shared line worked!! lol!![
 
Re phone;

Shared service had the same pair of cables going to each of 2 houses.
To initiate the outgoing call the earth and 1 line was used, but speech was over both lines, each house used a different line.

To receive a call, the ring voltage occoured between earth and 1 line and speech then over both lines.

Only 1 house could speak at once, but the other could listen in.

(or very similar to that as it's over 46 years since I did basic Telephony training at the GPO).

Re the water earth, yes it could

Yep! I remember the party line we had well. We shared with an old couple 3 doors away where the wifey would have endless conversations with her daughter which we cold hear every time we tried to make a call. Then she made the whole deal worse by not putting the handset on the hook properly so we could hear her chuntering to her old man.

She was never happy to answer the door to us when we had to go to tell her to put he bloody thing back on the hook so we could use it - it was like somehow it was all our fault and nothing to do with her!

The whole problem was the fact the exchange was so very overloaded and the (then) GPO wanted to build a new one but every site they proposed was blocked by the local council who then complained to the GPO about the poor telephone service in the area! Catch 22 strikes again.

Eventually GPO acquired the Co-op shops next door to the exchange, knocked them down and built and extension to the exchange on the site.

It was wonderful - all the party lines were ditched and we all had our very own lines and the exchange had room to spare for future expansion.

Then almost overnight the new-fangled Digital Age exploded on us and all the almost brand new equipment in the exchange was binned and replaced by pieces of electronic stuff a fraction of the size which would have just about fitted into a Portacabin never mind the old exchange as it was.

So here we are over 20 years down the line with a huge telephone exchange with all it's necessary equipment occupying a broom cupboard and coping very well and floor after floor empty and doing nothing - AND we don't have our Co-op any more!
 
Well it turns out the stranded 4mm wire is actually in fact the earth.

So if the bonding from the rod to the MET should the board be upgraded to a 17th edition board?? Some ppl think it doesn't require as it met the regs when it was installed.
 
Well it turns out the stranded 4mm wire is actually in fact the earth.

So if the bonding from the rod to the MET should the board be upgraded to a 17th edition board?? Some ppl think it doesn't require as it met the regs when it was installed.


Hi atm84

don't quite understand what the above is asking.
 
If you do work on an installation then the new work must meet 17 edition regs. If the Main bonding and Main earthing is improved then should the consumer unit be upgraded to meet 17th edition also?
 
You can't force people to get work done mate, all you can do is advise but as long as the circuit you're working on complies then you're good to go.
 
You can't force people to get work done mate, all you can do is advise but as long as the circuit you're working on complies then you're good to go.

I didn't say anything about forcing anyone to get work done. I was merely asking if the main earthing and bonding is upgraded does the consumer uni need to be upgraded to meet 17tg edition?
 
basically, atm, what they're saying is that if you fit a new CU, then it must comply with current regs. but there's no requirement to fit one if the existing CU is " safe for continued use".
 

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British Gas- bad earth
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