DanMcLiverpool
DIY
- Reaction score
- 26
Disclaimer: I'm not going to attempt this job myself, I want a professional to do this job properly since I consider it non-trivial and need it safe as poss. The reason I'm posting it in DIY is because I want to understand it properly.
I believe our plumbing is not bonded/earthed. Quite clear to see - the pipes under the boiler are next to the consumer unit, and there's an earth cable there that's been snipped at both ends (it's just pinned to the wall).
My understanding (limited) is that the pipes are metal, if some wire should come lose which somehow makes contact with any point of the piping, the whole house's plumbing could become live.
Questions:
Please excuse the potentially silly question, but I'm in a DIY section here trying to understand it for safety's sake - I also want to ensure the electrician's doing a thorough job. I have these pipes near the CU, but I also have a stop cock hidden in the kitchen, and I have a 2 week old baby which has me on a big safety trip at the mo!
Thank you!
I believe our plumbing is not bonded/earthed. Quite clear to see - the pipes under the boiler are next to the consumer unit, and there's an earth cable there that's been snipped at both ends (it's just pinned to the wall).
My understanding (limited) is that the pipes are metal, if some wire should come lose which somehow makes contact with any point of the piping, the whole house's plumbing could become live.
Questions:
- Is my understanding correct?
- How have people known this was missing (to leave me the warning card)? Certain people have been out that I'm not sure have seen inside (i.e. to service the electric box outside) but somehow knew it wasn't earthed?
- Assume we bond/earth the pipes to the consumer unit (as it looked like it'd been previously), any live current connected to that piping we'll be protected from. But what about if there's plastic pipe elsewhere and then more metal piping elsewhere in the house that becomes live. It wouldn't protect us from that, would it? So isn't bonding these pipes only as effective as long as there's no break in the conductors somewhere? As an example: we earth the pipes under the boiler to the CU, then there's some plastic piping to some plumbing upstairs, however the upstairs becomes live - that's not earthed is it?
Please excuse the potentially silly question, but I'm in a DIY section here trying to understand it for safety's sake - I also want to ensure the electrician's doing a thorough job. I have these pipes near the CU, but I also have a stop cock hidden in the kitchen, and I have a 2 week old baby which has me on a big safety trip at the mo!
Thank you!