Earth rods, here we go again!

drew35 · Oct 11, 2012

I couldn’t help think about Engineer54’s teachings today when I carried out an EICR and found two earth rods with an RA of 393 ohms.

I pictured him sitting atop Everest, deep in meditation like Buddha, divinely in tune with all TT installations around the world, trying to teach people the path to enlightenment which comes with a lower RA! Saddened by the knowledge of poorly installed, feeble 10mm rods installed at insufficient depth, without separation of the rods exceeding depth… :ihih:

This is a holiday let above a garage. What made me laugh was the person who installed the rods (NICEIC domestic installer), also changed the consumer unit, carried out a PIR and installation certificate. And after fitting a 16th edition board, failed his own work with a code 2 on his PIR because all circuits on a TT weren’t covered by an RCD??? And then noted on his certificates an RA of 283ohms, not to mention a whole load of gibberish I didn’t understand.

What confused me is the house is TNS, and there is a 3 core SWA feeding the Holiday let. The SWA has been terminated into a Wiska, and then connected to meter tails, but the CPC is sitting there unused but connected at the houses MET with a Ze of 0.43ohms? I’ll have that then! Saves messing around with earth rods out in the Welsh sun (rain)! :yes:

Knobhead · Oct 11, 2012

Who's you're script writer Drew?

Silly Sausage · Oct 11, 2012

"failed his own work with a code 2"

Brilliant!

Plonker 3 · Oct 11, 2012

Archy Styrigg said:
"failed his own work with a code 2"

Brilliant!

I thought that is what it said, but thought surely not. read it 6 times to make sure I wasnt seeing things.

Did he just issue a PIR for the DB change then?

Engineer54 · Oct 11, 2012

Your right, i do sometimes wonder if there are any electricians left in the UK that understand what a TT system is, and what it's there for... lol!!

As you say, ...A total waste of an incompetents time and money!! Perhaps he hoped that fat earth cable would give him a lower Ra reading?? lol!! Looks like there isn't even a meter of those twigs actually in the ground from the photo, and those black earth rod connection boxes wouldn't be lasting too long either, total crap they are!!

i=p/u · Oct 11, 2012

It's an earth spike used for moling fault current/ leakage current back to transformers earth spike.

Rate this answer 1-10

jaydee81 · Oct 11, 2012

Carrying on from earth rods how many times have you come across a sub main on a tt system not rcd protected came across one few weeks ago with no rcd protection at all not even rcd in consumer unit with ze of 120 ohms and it was only fitted couple years ago by a supposedly registered sparks

drew35 · Oct 12, 2012

No he did issue an installation cert also, plus the PIR.

I thought I brought the PIR back with me, I could have scanned in it, but I must have left it behind.

No Engineer54 today?

Geordie Spark · Oct 12, 2012

drew35 said:
View attachment 15146 View attachment 15147

I couldn’t help think about Engineer54’s teachings today when I carried out an EICR and found two earth rods with an RA of 393 ohms.

I pictured him sitting atop Everest, deep in meditation like Buddha, divinely in tune with all TT installations around the world, trying to teach people the path to enlightenment which comes with a lower RA! Saddened by the knowledge of poorly installed, feeble 10mm rods installed at insufficient depth, without separation of the rods exceeding depth… :ihih:

This is a holiday let above a garage. What made me laugh was the person who installed the rods (NICEIC domestic installer), also changed the consumer unit, carried out a PIR and installation certificate. And after fitting a 16th edition board, failed his own work with a code 2 on his PIR because all circuits on a TT weren’t covered by an RCD??? And then noted on his certificates an RA of 283ohms, not to mention a whole load of gibberish I didn’t understand.

What confused me is the house is TNS, and there is a 3 core SWA feeding the Holiday let. The SWA has been terminated into a Wiska, and then connected to meter tails, but the CPC is sitting there unused but connected at the houses MET with a Ze of 0.43ohms? I’ll have that then! Saves messing around with earth rods out in the Welsh sun (rain)! :yes: