Earthing to armour of SWA

[sjm]

Seen it quite often where the armour of SWA is not earthed, at all, just removed and cores used as live, neutral and earth.
IMHO this is completely wrong for the first installation (what were they thinking??) and should be rectified urgently if found on an EICR ie code C1/2.


What do you guys think? What code? I'm interested to find out.


Thanks in advance.
Steve.

 

[telectrix]

so that's where my wheelchair went! anyone own up to nicking my zimmer frame?

 

[ackbarthestar]

Impressive......
You use both at the same time ?

 

[wade88]

I completely lost the thread of this argument after my cat brought in a mouse and let it loose to run around the room.

IMO smaller SWA cables only need to be earthed at the supply end if an internal cpc is run with the live conductors.
No point in putting stress on the armour under earth fault conditions.

Unless you hit it with a spade and then its good night SWA, regardless

Back to the mouse

Its strange that they leave their kebabs half eaten with blood all over the carpet, they are usually quite thorough, this time not!

I think the mouse was unwell, that's why the cats didn't finish it off....

Just as a little side note to your cats chomping ferrel rodent wild life - my family business for the past 20 years has been the manufacture and formulation of pest control products, namely rat and mouse poisons. We manufacture circa 10 tonnes per day of rat poison in the form of wax, grain, pasta and gel based products.

If your cats regularly kill mice and eat them (which is just part and parcel of being a cat) but have left a few half eaten ones laying around, as gruesome as it might be, its worth checking the contents of the mouses stomach to see if it has ingested any poison. With the use of rodent control poisons being so frequent and wide spread, the chance of secondary poisoning to cats, birds and dogs etc is quite common place. It would take a considerable amount of poison to actually kill your cat however, so no need for concern but just a word of advice.

might be worth checking. If someone has a rodent problem in your area then your cat may be frequently ingesting quantities of poison which accumulate over time.

 

[telectrix]

and that would put a bad taste in the curry.:devil:

 

[ackbarthestar]

Thanks Wade88 for the information

'Angus' my fat old Ginger tabby brought back 4 wriggling kababs last weekend and another, that you know about, last night.

I watch with anticipation while its still wriggling in his mouth and then when I hear the first scrunch, I relax and listen to him scrunching though all the calcium bits. He usually leaves the tail or stomach but on occasions there's no evidence of anything left around.

He's a bit of a rascal, he managed to get a duck through the outer cat flap. Both Duck and Cat just looked at me quizzically as though there was something wrong !

Needless to say, I grabbed the cat, opened the door and watched the duck waddle off down the path.

For a moment I thought this is an Electrical Forum, but then you never know what's in the air......

 

[Engineer54]

Everywhere I’ve worked not earthing both ends of an SWA would be instant dismissal, end of!

Agree, ...If the manufactures or the regulatory bodies thought there was a need for only glanding one end of a SWA, they would have produced appropriate glands to do so!! Rather than relying on typically, stuffing glands designed for a totally different wiring system cable!!!....

 

[Guest111]

Just as a little side note to your cats chomping ferrel rodent wild life - my family business for the past 20 years has been the manufacture and formulation of pest control products, namely rat and mouse poisons. We manufacture circa 10 tonnes per day of rat poison in the form of wax, grain, pasta and gel based products.

If your cats regularly kill mice and eat them (which is just part and parcel of being a cat) but have left a few half eaten ones laying around, as gruesome as it might be, its worth checking the contents of the mouses stomach to see if it has ingested any poison. With the use of rodent control poisons being so frequent and wide spread, the chance of secondary poisoning to cats, birds and dogs etc is quite common place. It would take a considerable amount of poison to actually kill your cat however, so no need for concern but just a word of advice.

might be worth checking. If someone has a rodent problem in your area then your cat may be frequently ingesting quantities of poison which accumulate over time.

My mates grain store started using pasta bait recently as he was told not to use the granular stuff in the boxes in the store area,cracking stuff can,t remember who he buys it from though.

 

[telectrix]

Agree, ...If the manufactures or the regulatory bodies thought there was a need for only glanding one end of a SWA, they would have produced appropriate glands to do so!! Rather than relying on typically, stuffing glands designed for a totally different wiring system cable!!!....

agreed, but if you are only earthing the armour, not using as cpc, there's no need to connect to earth/cpc at the downstream end. obviously, it needs glanding off properly.

 

[Engineer54]

agreed, but if you are only earthing the armour, not using as cpc, there's no need to connect to earth/cpc at the downstream end. obviously, it needs glanding off properly.

Unless i was changing the earthing system from one end to the other, such as a PME at the origin, and TT at the downstream end, then i will generally gland off the SWA both ends. That's whether i was using the SWA as a CPC or one of the cores. Obviously if changing earthing systems, the far end of the SWA would need to be isolated. (Possibly the only time i would contemplate using a stuffing type gland on a SWA cable)... lol!!!

 

[telectrix]

i was thinking more along the lines of plastic boxes, whereby the armour at the downstream end would only be earthed if a banjo, nut,bolt,tag,and fly lead were fitted.

 

[sjm]

Which Wiska boxes are you talking about? We have recently completed a large Voice Alarm installation and all the speaker lines are supervised. The majority of the installation is in SWA and there is a break in the earth somewhere :'( thats todays fault find. Shame all the junction boxes are on walls 4 metres up! The only Wiska boxes i have used are from Neweys and i don't think you would be able to terminate an armoured into them?

Wiska box 308 has 8 x 20mm threaded knockouts, 2 per side. They do packs of earth bars that cover 2 holes (the packs have 2 bars per pack). The boxes are IP65 rated. The dogs dodads IMHO.
Check out the website. COMBI Junction Boxes - Bellied Box - Sealing against moisture - IP 68

Hope that helps.

 

[rmc86uk]

It annoys me when people don't know how to put a nice bend on the swa when glanding off! See a few swan neck types where the bend goes past where's it to be glanded then bends back in or when there are loads of swa's glanded all with different bends on, makes me wonder who taught these people!

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[yellowvanman]

Had a discussion with my assessor on this quite recently and he was of the opinion that the SWA only needed earthing if buried, I was taken aback by that. I always gland both ends using earth nuts and flying leads and will continue to do so.

This discussion was brought up by me asking whether he thought the braid on SY needed earthing, similar answer to above - doesn't necessarily need earthing. Have to disagree again on this.

 

[Silly Sausage]

Had a discussion with my assessor

Who's your assessor (with)?
I always think of armour as an exposed cond part, so needs earthing for that alone

 

[Knobhead]

So why do they go to the effort of making earthed SY glands?

Your assessor needs putting out to grass. I’m sure if you Google “Donkey Sanitary” you’ll find somewhere for him.

If he is an example of an assessor………………..