Partially sleeved earth wire

[Bricky]

Hi. I’m a builder who is currently adding an extension and renovating and requiring his own home. The newly acquired father in law, who I was told was once a sparky, has been helping with the electrics. He is retired and not part p registered so I have paid the local council to test and write off. Under his guidance I did the chasing out and first fixing, got it inspected then left him to second fix at his leisure.

All work has been done and his son, who is a sparks on industrial sites put in a new consumer unit yesterday. Good, clean, tidy work, obviously knows what he’s doing. Whilst testing he pulled off a socket cover and noticed the earth was not fully sleeved. He spoke to his father who said yes, he didn’t sleeve the entire wire and has left 10-30mm of bare earth wire in the back boxes.

The son told him of the inspector sees this it will fail the and he needs to open up all fittings and fully sleeve the earth leaving no bare wire.

I am done, decorated, tiled, have plumbers and kitchen fitters coming in next week and really don’t want every socket, switch and light fitting pulled off through the entire house.

Simple question, will it fail as it is?

Reason I ask is father and son often argue and I want to be sure this absolutely needs doing and the son is not being overly critical of his fathers work.

 

[Leesparkykent]

It’s going to come down to the test and inspector and what he wants. TBH I don’t understand why he would of done it but it is identified. I bet it looks really rough though.

 

[Wilko]

The regulation is for the bare wire to be sleeved. If it is only partly sleeved then it does not comply, sorry. In my opinion, the Electrical Inspector will likely be a local Electrician that the Building Inspector trusts. So it's a gamble that they will not find it. If I found it, it would be "no cert till fixed, sorry". On the other hand it's probably a few of hours to do the whole lot and be done. The young fella might enjoy some extra readies for a Sunday afternoon job?

 

[Bricky]

Thanks for the replies.

He says he only partially sleeved as he thought it was for identification only.

Afraid it will be days of work for him spread over weeks. It’s already taken him four months to second fix a three bed semi and I can’t delay any longer. I’ll have do it myself and deal with any hurt feelings later.

Thanks fellas.

 

[johnduffell]

The sleeving is only for identification, there's no need to insulate a cpc under bs7671, hence why it's not insulated in twin and earth.
Most people sleeve it all the way for neatness, but to be honest it's harder to be sure the conductor is properly in the terminal of you have a loose sleeve flapping around in the way. So I'd support a habit of shorter sleeving.
The regs allow completely bare cpcs, furthermore they use enclosures made of metal connected to all the CPCs in order to provide additional protection over the basic insulation.

 

[johnduffell]

The regulation is for the bare wire to be sleeved. If it is only partly sleeved then it does not comply

Be interested to know which reg

 

[123]

Just seems like bad practice more than anything.

 

[Deleted account]

The sleeving is only for identification, there's no need to insulate a cpc under bs7671, hence why it's not insulated in twin and earth.
Most people sleeve it all the way for neatness, but to be honest it's harder to be sure the conductor is properly in the terminal of you have a loose sleeve flapping around in the way. So I'd support a habit of shorter sleeving.
The regs allow completely bare cpcs, furthermore they use enclosures made of metal connected to all the CPCs in order to provide additional protection over the basic insulation.

That suprises me. Il try to look that be up in the regs.

 

[westward10]

543.3.201

 

[Deleted account]

Westward 10 . You just beat me to it.

 

[Leesparkykent]

What does it say as Book in the office?

 

[SparkyChick]

543.3.201 A protective conductor having a cross-sectional area up to and including 6 mm2 shall be protected throughout by a covering at least equivalent to that provided by the insulation of a single-core non-sheathed cable of appropriate size having a voltage rating of at least 450/750 V, except for the following:

(i) A protective conductor forming part of a multicore cable
(ii) A metal conduit, metallic cable management system or other enclosure or electrically continuous support system for conductors, where used as a protective conductor.

Where the sheath of a cable incorporating an uninsulated protective conductor of cross-sectional area up to and including 6 mm2 is removed adjacent to joints and terminations, the protective conductor shall be protected by insulating sleeving complying with BS EN 60684 series.

 

[johnduffell]

Interesting thanks for the information that was something i didn't know, so the sleeving is both identification and "protection" presumably mechanical due to the fragile size
The protection is equivalent to that provided by insulation, but it's not actually insulation.
So basically equivalent to sheathing.

 

[Bricky]

This is proving interesting. Thanks again for the info, fellas.

It seems, like most building regs, to be contradictory and open to interpretation and is going to depend on the inspector. I think what I’ll do is call him in the morning, explain things and ask if he has a problem with the sleeving.

Kind regards to all.

 

[Resu]

It seems, like most building regs, to be contradictory and open to interpretation and is going to depend on the inspector. I think what I’ll do is call him in the morning, explain things and ask if he has a problem with the sleeving.

It's not open to interpretation, it should be fully sleeved as Sparkychick has quoted from the regulations.

Where the sheath of a cable incorporating an uninsulated protective conductor of cross-sectional area up to and including 6 mm2 is removed adjacent to joints and terminations, the protective conductor shall be protected by insulating sleeving complying with BS EN 60684 series.

 

[johnduffell]

It's not open to interpretation, it should be fully sleeved as Sparkychick has quoted from the regulations.

Agree, you can disregard my post earlier as it's been proved incorrect. Unfortunately it's too late to edit to point out it's now retracted due to being proved wrong

 

[SparkyChick]

In sleeving CPCs in back boxes etc. your providing protection against unwanted contact with other terminals to avoid bangs, flashes and other unwanted side effects such as random RCD tripping.

The sleeving offers very little in the way of mechanical protection, it's far too flexible and flimsy.

It's not open to interpretation, it should be fully sleeved as Sparkychick has quoted from the regulations.

Credit for the regulation quoting goes to @westward10 , I merely got the text from the regs

 

[GeorgeCooke]

He is retired and not part p registered

Nor is anyone else. There is no such thing as part P registration. Part P is a building reg, nothing else.