Who's equipment is this: BNO or DNO

[kropaske]

So this is 1st floor maisonnette with concrete floor, 16mm2 single insulated tails coming from dual cut out on ground floor, through steel conduit, which is used as earth with some old clamps and bare wires. Tails terminates in another cutout as per pics and then arrangement is as usual. System is TNS.

I contacted DNO to look at it but all I got is this:

This is a pyro riser, solid copper single insulated running up a copper pipe. This is supposed to be earthed off the pole. This set up is the responsibility of the BNO (Business Network Operator) of the building.

Who would be the BNO in this case a freeholder? Are we allow to work on BNO equipment? Let's face it no one will admit it's their equipment.

 

[littlespark]

"pyro" is a brand name of mineral insulated cable.... and that's not mineral insulated cable.

As you say, it's plain 6181Y singles in an earthed steel conduit.


Are you needing to work on this, or is it just for information?

 

[davesparks]

That definately isn't Pyro!

It will have been installed by the electricity board and would have been the property and responsibility of the DNO when they took over.
Then one day the idea of a BNO came along and DNO's denounced responsibility for any distribution within a property. This works great on a new build block of flats where everything is nice and simple and a BNO exists. but for any older property things like this have become an electrical no-man's land, no BNO exists and setting something like that up just to look after a few meters of cable is ridiculous.

Unfortunately I don't think there is any realistic answer to this problem at the moment, other than stopping politicians from writing rules about engineering matters.

 

[loz2754]

Doesn't look like pyro to me. And the DNO should refer to it as MICC, not the nickname pyro. And what is the "pole" they refer to?
And BNO stands for Building Network Operator, not Business Network Operator.
And why would there be a BNO if this is a maisonette?
Sounds like a fob off from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.

 

[kropaske]

"pyro" is a brand name of mineral insulated cable.... and that's not mineral insulated cable.

As you say, it's plain 6181Y singles in an earthed steel conduit.


Are you needing to work on this, or is it just for information?

Yeah, I need to extend 1 circuit. Are there any suitable sheeting/insulation that can be retrofitted to those tails?

 

[snowhead]

It's the Freeholders responsibility to appoint a Building Network Operator.
It may be themselves and put out the work to a Contractor, it may be they put the BNO repsonsibility to a contractor or to the Managing Agent, if there is one.

The first point of call is the Managing / Letting Agent / Freeholder, if they don't know THEY need to find out or sort out appointing one.


The idea of the BNO makes sense as it defines where the DNO's responsibility stops.
What doesn't make sense is some Commercial propety owners being or claiming to be ignorant of their responsbility.

When it was the old regional electricity companies looking after a relatively small network and doing installation installs, they were geared up for doing work withing properties, the DNO are not.