dangers associated with wiring earth to neutral in the consumer unit?

[Simon47]

The "all" here is important. TNC-S regs on the consumer side of the installation, in the UK, are intended to ensure that ALL metal in reach that could have a relatively low resistance to earth is indeed dragged up to near the live voltage. The idea being, that like the bird perching unharmed on live overhead wires, if you touch 'live' metal with one hand and near equally 'live' metal with the other, you will not be electrocuted.

A tree bringing down an overhead neutral line would have to be within 500M of your property to have any detrimental effect on your supply.

But this is assuming that all extraneous conductive parts are in fact well bonded. Given what we know about Spanish electrics, I would not assume this to be the case.

EDIT: In fact, go back to the OPs pictures and tell me where you see evidence of ANY equipotential bonding at all.

 

[overflow99]

Most socket testers are only a device that short out between phase and earth, therefore orientating the tester to short out between earth and neutral would have no effect as they are already connected.

A tree bringing down an overhead neutral line would have to be within 500M of your property to have any detrimental effect on your supply.

Thanks for clarifying, much appreciated. GOOD NEWS.... Pester power has finally worked... I got an email this morning from the Community Administrator saying they had appointed an electrician to put in a central earthing point and they would be looking to find a suitable place to position the earth connector and they will bring it to the meter board. It would then be up to me to have the earth brought from the meter board to the apartment. Very relieved, if not very surprised. So one last question, when the earth enters my apartment should I have them untie earth and neutral and just link to the new earth connection or leave them joined. My thoughts as a layman is untie, would this be right. Though I think if their electrician, (Spanish), does, bring the connection up for me, he might look a little surprised to see it. Thanks to everyone who assisted me over the last number of days - totally appreciated!

 

[overflow99]

Looks to me like the supply in is the black and blue cables coming in from bottom right....
They go up to a double pole circuit breaker (20A) at the top, that then feeds the 25A RCCB below it.
Then goes through a 15A circuit breaker, and this exits through the back of the box. (only one circuit?)

I dont think theres much any of us UK based electricians can say about this... without knowing the regs....although i think one or two might have experience on spanish soil.

Im surprised the sockets are marked positive and negative.... thought they would be L and N

Hi littlespark, the 15amp circuit breaker at the bottom has troubled me, since you mentioned it being live. So, I switched ONLY the 15amp breaker off and I'm still getting 230v at the socket L to E. Is the MCB not wired the wrong way round. The live with the earth tied to it, goes out through the wall to the to the sockets btw. The spark told me when paying him last night the earth was tied to neutral. But surely that is tied to the L as you pointed out. When the breaker was off there was an 8v reading in the sockets L to N, I should also say.

 

[overflow99]

Looks to me like the supply in is the black and blue cables coming in from bottom right....
They go up to a double pole circuit breaker (20A) at the top, that then feeds the 25A RCCB below it.
Then goes through a 15A circuit breaker, and this exits through the back of the box. (only one circuit?)

I dont think theres much any of us UK based electricians can say about this... without knowing the regs....although i think one or two might have experience on spanish soil.

Im surprised the sockets are marked positive and negative.... thought they would be L and N

I opened up the CU again and the round junction box above and what I found was the blue and brown wires coming in from the wall just above the 15a circuit breaker are actually the L & N coming in to the CU. The black and blue wires are leaving the CU to the dodgy looking wall switch marked Main Switch. The wire colours are the wrong way, not to code. The brown wires and therefore the black wires are N and the blue wires are L, which I think explains why I was getting 230v L to N when only that 15a circuit breaker was switched off. The neutral is going through the circuit breaker and the E is tied to N at the point of entry. The way I checked L and N, was multimeter from brown wire to E, connector in the round junction box, (0v), and blue wire to E in the junction box, (230v). So the direction seems to be incoming brown N to 15a circuit breaker, outgoing brown N from 15a circuit breaker to RCD top right ON position. Outgoing brown N from RCD to top right ON position of double pole 20a circuit breaker, exiting 20a circuit breaker by black N and leaves CU at the bottom and goes to dodgy looking wall switch, marked Main Switch. The incoming blue L comes out of the wall and goes to the bottom right ON position on the RCD and blue L wire exits RCD and goes to bottom right ON position of the 20a Double Pole Circuit Breaker. Blue L wire exits 20a circuit breaker and leaves CU at the bottom and goes to dodgy looking wall socket marked Main Switch. E joins incoming N at the 15a circuit breaker and joins the E from the sockets in the round junction box above. Why would Neutral go through the 15a circuit breaker, as I found out switching it off didn't interrupt the supply. Would this not trip in the event of a fault or are the RCD and 20a double pole doing that job. Is it safe set up bar the concerns of a N break, (which I'm definitely not dismissing). There's no other immediate in apartment safety issue is what I'm wondering. If it was your CU, what would be the safest wiring approach, thanks.