RCBO fly leads

[somersetsparks]

Heres a debate for you, seeing as this place is as dead as a doornail today.
I have been testing a street of domestic properties recently, wired in 2008 with all rcbo's. In some properties the electrician has put all the white fly-leads into one terminal in the earth bar, In the others they have put each one in with the respective circuits cpc.

Which way do you do it?

I'll start the ball rolling by saying I would put them all into the same terminal (for domestic anyways) for the following reasons
a) When you come to doing an EICR, you only have to undo one connection to test the circuits using method 2 rather then disturb every single earth connection.
b) its a lot bl***y easier to install.

When it comes to commercial where there may be only 1 or 2 rcbo's in a TPN board then I would put them with their respective cpc.

Opinions?

 

[somersetsparks]

I recently had to install some BG RCBOs from screwfix (BG 32A Single Pole B Type RCBO | Screwfix.com), and these don't come with a functional earth!

I have never quite understood the need for them anyways, as all rcbo's will test fine with them disconnected? Looks like another string to the BG bow!

 

[Guest55]

mem eaton also do not use earth flyleads.
much neater job without.
thumbs up

 

[High Tower]

Does anyone cut excessively long fly leads down?

 

[Guest55]

yep.
it looks an utter dogs dinner when you dont lol.
;-)

 

[NDG Elecs]

Does anyone cut excessively long fly leads down?

Always do, as Biff says - looks even naffer than naff if you dont..

 

[Engineer54]

Any functional earth leads from RCBO's and the like, should be terminated with that circuits CPC. I've always had it done that way, and will continue to do so... I can't think of anything worse than opening up a DB/CU and seeing a bunched load of functional earths into one or more terminals.

 

[somersetsparks]

Any functional earth leads from RCBO's and the like, should be terminated with that circuits CPC. I've always had it done that way, and will continue to do so... I can't think of anything worse than opening up a DB/CU and seeing a bunched load of functional earths into one or more terminals.

Although I would have agreed with you until recently engineer, its not until I had to do a few EICR's when you have 10 RCBO's in a small placcy fuseboard and have to undo every cpc termination to do my IR tests and then redo them (some inevitably need re-terminating as well) that I thought any different.
I suppose its only come to light now as I have started testing a lot of 17th edition RCBO houses, how I wish we could go back to the simple times of the 16th! lol
It might look a bit crappy but IMHO a lot more practical, anyhow either way is entirely inconsequential when it comes to safety etc.
Now on TPN board or even a single phase board with a mixture of MCB's and RCBO's I would definitely put them with their respective CPC's

 

[NDG Elecs]

twisting tri-rate with solid cores or stranded ?

Whats tri-rate mate?

It is sometimes awkward trying to twist the stranded with the solid I must admit!!

just googled tri-rate.... never knowingly used it unless most singles are rated such. Guessing the fly lead would be tri rated..

 

[Engineer54]

Although I would have agreed with you until recently engineer, its not until I had to do a few EICR's when you have 10 RCBO's in a small placcy fuseboard and have to undo every cpc termination to do my IR tests and then redo them (some inevitably need re-terminating as well) that I thought any different.
I suppose its only come to light now as I have started testing a lot of 17th edition RCBO houses, how I wish we could go back to the simple times of the 16th! lol
It might look a bit crappy but IMHO a lot more practical, anyhow either way is entirely inconsequential when it comes to safety etc.
Now on TPN board or even a single phase board with a mixture of MCB's and RCBO's I would definitely put them with their respective CPC's

I don't know how you conduct circuit IR testing, but i test circuit by circuit, so every CPC on the earth rail bar would be disconnected as a matter of course anyway. It would also, be very rare where you would not have a mixture of RCBO's and MCB's in a 3 phase DB.

 

[somersetsparks]

on a domestic db, I would do a global IR test usually and only breakdown to individual circuits if problems are found, on a 3 phase db, I would test individual circuits, I was only referring to new all rcbo domestic db's with regards to grouping the flyleads anyhow

 

[Knobhead]

I can’t see why this is a question, logic dictates you should have the functional earth and circuit earth at the same point.

Or am I just too logical?

 

[High Tower]

yep.
it looks an utter dogs dinner when you dont lol.
;-)

Glad it's not just me!!

 

[GLENNSPARK]

I can’t see why this is a question, logic dictates you should have the functional earth and circuit earth at the same point.

Or am I just too logical?

no...your not being too logical here Tony...
i think its just common sense to do it....the bars are numbered....so you use the corisponding number for the way being occupied....
thats the way it should be....i mean, what in future if that RCBO needs to come out?.....so i suppose its a case of sorting through a bundle of functional earths...till you get the right one.....it`s slovenly...thats what it is...

 

[Engineer54]

on a domestic db, I would do a global IR test usually and only breakdown to individual circuits if problems are found, on a 3 phase db, I would test individual circuits, I was only referring to new all rcbo domestic db's with regards to grouping the flyleads anyhow

In my line of projects we don't do global IR testing. In fact i can't honestly say i remember the last time i did a global IR on an installation. As a complete guess i wold say, probably sometime in the 80's. ...lol!! Even then, on a new installation, i would never conduct a global IR test. What figure do you fill in, on your test result sheets/report, for the individual circuits, if you only conduct global IR tests and the results are good??

 

[somersetsparks]

the same figure for all circuits, i believe it is actually recommended to do a global IR test on an eicr when practical