Bathroom Earth Bonding

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I’m just checking the earth bonding in my bathroom....

There are two copper pipes coming into the bathroom for hot and cold water. These then connect to plastic pipes, and every connection to a tap or shower after that is by plastic pipe.

We have a stainless steel bath, with chrome mixer taps, overflow and chrome shower. All of the pipe work here is plastic as mentioned above.

There is a chrome towel that is connected to the heating using plastic pipes but has copper tails. It also has an electric heating element.

As far as I can see there is no earth bonding on the back of any of the taps or pipe work.

Should any of this be bonded to earth? Should the bath be bonded to earth? The towel rail appears to be earthed through the heating element but I cant see any other earthing?

In this scenario how should everything be bonded to be safe?

As I am replacing some of the bathroom I want to make sure it all safe at the safe time.
 
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Silence there's no path back for earth ( due to plastic pipes) thre no need to earth.

Double so if you have a fuse board with rcd protection, and if the gas and water supplies are bonded with 10 mm earths to / from the main earth terminal.
 
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"There is no such thing as earth bonding !"




EEBADS (old name) minus ADS (new name) = EEB , what does EEB stand for?
 
Sorry force of habit - I meant equipotential bonding... working in the public electronics sector requires everything to be bonded to a common earthing point, hence just force of habit to say earth bonding. Obviously the last thing I want to do is bond my bath tub to earth which could be at any potential in relation to the other conducting items within my bathroom.

my query was mainly to do with a metal bath connected with plastic pipes. These plastic pipes are connected to copper pipes about 1 Metre away. If we consider that water is a conductor of electricity (admittedly a bad one) surely there is still risk if one of the those copper pipes changes its potential that it will have the effect of change the potential of the water and consequently the taps. I am unsure what the impedance of water is I would imagine its got to be in the 100K – 1M Ohms range so I couldn’t say for certain what the potential difference could be. Am I being overly cautious here?

Is one or two meters of plastic pipe from the copper to the taps enough to negate the need to bond the taps out?
 
Is one or two meters of plastic pipe from the copper to the taps enough to negate the need to bond the taps out?
To separate the "earth" of my PME supply from the true earth of the TT suuply in the adjacent shop there must be at least one metre of plastic pipe between the two according to the DNO when they installed my supply. That is to prevent high currents from the "earth" and the earth when the neutral drifts or is forced away from ground potential. But that is drinking water that is not very conductive

The sludge and slime that builds up along the inside of a plastic waste pipe is probably very much more conductive than the same pipe filled with drinking water. Whether that presents a possiblity of the bath becoming "earthed" via the slimed up waste pipe can only be answered by testing the conductivity of the pipe.
 
Don't hijack an OLD topic!!!!!. Your question will only be viewed by the few people who saw the old topic you have added to.
Suggest you delete your post and start a NEW TOPIC.

Regards TTC
 
"There is no such thing as earth bonding !"




EEBADS (old name) minus ADS (new name) = EEB , what does EEB stand for?

EEBAD was Earthed Equipotential Bonding with Automatic Disconnection of Supply. Aside from the fact that EEBAD has not existed since the 16th Edition ceased to be current, earthed equipotential bonding does not imply that there is a such thing as "earth bonding". There isn't any such thing, nor was there ever any such thing.

Earthing and bonding are completely different concepts.
 
"There is no such thing as earth bonding !"




EEBADS (old name) minus ADS (new name) = EEB , what does EEB stand for?

EEBAD was Earthed Equipotential Bonding with Automatic Disconnection of Supply. Aside from the fact that EEBAD has not existed since the 16th Edition ceased to be current, earthed equipotential bonding does not imply that there is a such thing as "earth bonding". There isn't any such thing, nor was there ever any such thing.

Earthing and bonding are completely different concepts.

Earthing and bonding are indeed different concepts as you rightly say, although they both employ the earthing principle.

Earthing provides a "safe" path to earth to cause a overcurrent protective device such as a fuse or MCB etc to operate (and/or an RCD) in a rapid time during an earth fault.

Bonding substantially reduces the resistance/impedance between touchable parts in a system thereby reducing potential difference between them - touch voltage - until such a fault clears.

So, earthing for duration & bonding for magnitude. Two separate concepts.

Fortuitously, bonding often reduces the earth path thereby helping in reducing the duration too although it is not the intention it is no bad thing that this sometimes happens.

What I was pointing out was that we had a term, widely used, called EEBADS. Now we use ADS instead.
What was removed was EEBADS - ADS = EEB (Earthed Equipotential Bonding).

ie the Main Bonding is indeed intentionally earthed

Therefore the term "Earthed Equipotential Bonding" or "Earthed Bonding" or "Earth Bonding" for short was not very incorrect as such providing that we recognise the two different roles intended by the terms "Earthing" and "Bonding".

I suspected that term EEBADS was dropped in favour of ADS just to help clarify the two different intentions of protection by limiting duration & limiting magnitude.
 
I suspected that term EEBADS was dropped in favour of ADS just to help clarify the two different intentions of protection by limiting duration & limiting magnitude.

I suspect it was to align with IEC terminology.
 
I suspected that term EEBADS was dropped in favour of ADS just to help clarify the two different intentions of protection by limiting duration & limiting magnitude.
I suspect it was to align with IEC terminology.
Quite possibly, but isn't is also true that most 'ADS' has actually got absolutely nothing to do with "Earthed Equipotential Bonding" and would be equally applicable in an installation which had no bonding (not even Main Bonding) at all? In other words, it would seem that the 'EEB' is actually totally inappropriate in relation to most 'ADS' as we know it - which relies on earthing via a CPC, and has nothing to do with any sort of bonding.

Kind Regards, John
 
John,
YES but NO.
Sorry,

EEB limits Magnitude.
ADS limits Duration.

Together EEBADS limits both magnitude and duration.

Well at least it did when the term EEBADS was still in vogue.
 
John, YES but NO. Sorry, EEB limits Magnitude.
ADS limits Duration. Together EEBADS limits both magnitude and duration.
Indeed - or, in modern language (Earthed) Equipotential Bonding plus ADS limits both magnitude and duration.

However, I don't really understand your 'No' and 'Sorry' - how is what I wrote incompatible with any of the above? All I said was that most ADS (just ADS - i.e. the limitation of duration only) requires only earthing and has nothing to do with (and doesn't depend upon) any sort of bonding.

Kind Regards, John
 

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