Gas and Electric Cable Separation

Fair enough, but the wording is very similar to 8.16.2 of BS6891 which you quoted earlier - which, if taken literally, appears to say that, if there is some intervening 'insulating material', then there is no requirement for any separation at all!

It seems to look that way, so that would mean running gas pipes within 150mm of a consumer unit, would not really be in breech of any regulation, if we take in to consideration a polycarbonate CU enclosure.
 
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Fair enough, but the wording is very similar to 8.16.2 of BS6891 which you quoted earlier - which, if taken literally, appears to say that, if there is some intervening 'insulating material', then there is no requirement for any separation at all!
It seems to look that way, so that would mean running gas pipes within 150mm of a consumer unit, would not really be in breech of any regulation, if we take in to consideration a polycarbonate CU enclosure.
I suppose it's down to interpretation again. In considering the amount of insulation between live electrical conductors in a cable and a gas pipe, they seem to be ignoring the two layers of insulating material in the cable, and are asking for a third layer, external to the cable. They may therefore think the same way about a CU, 'not counting' the insulating enclosure of the CU, and therefore requiring some additional 'insulating material' between that an the gas pipe!

Kind Regards, John
 
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or a risk assessment made!
Indeed, and we don't really know for sure what sort of risks they are trying to guard against. I suspect that, in practice, it's all pretty hypothetical, since the risk resulting from gas pipes being in close proximity to anything electrical is probably vanishingly small. In terms of thermal phenomena, a temperature high enough to melt cable insulation would probably be approaching that needed to melt the solder of gas pipe unions.

Ironically, and again probably vanishingly improbable, the greatest 'electrical risk' to gas pipes might actually result from the presence of main bonding. In certain, very improbable, combinations of faults and circumstances, that could result in very high currents flowing through the gas pipe.

Kind Regards, John
 

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