Bathroom wiring questions

[zetecuk]

Ok, a few probably dumb questions, but its always the simple stuff that isn't explained properly anywhere, and I wanna make sure I get things right.

1 - Earth Bonding

So far I've bonded all radiators and pipework together... How do I link to the main earth for the house? Do I connect the earth bonding into the shower's earth terminal, or run an earth to the consumer unit, or both?

2 - Connecting Shower To Consumer Unit

Should be fairly straight forward as I am just swapping the old 6mm cable and uprating the MCB. Can I do this and open up the consumer unit just by switching off the main switch on the CU, or do you need to isolate the supply by pulling the main fuse or something?


Prize goes to the first person to post "If you don't know that, you should call an electrician"

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[dingbat]

1 - Earth Bonding

So far I've bonded all radiators and pipework together... How do I link to the main earth for the house? Do I connect the earth bonding into the shower's earth terminal, or run an earth to the consumer unit, or both?

The protective conductors (the 'earths') of all power and lighting points within the bathroom zones must be supplementary bonded to to all extraneous conductive parts (all that pipework)

So, yes, you should take your supplementary bonding into your shower's earth terminal. And the earths of any other equipment, including lights that are in the zones. If the earth cable is mechanically protected (e.g. behind bath panels/in trunking/run in stud wall etc, you can use 2.5 sq mm, but otherwise it should be 4 sq mm. (You should be using 6491X cable, often referred to as 'X' grade)

2 - Connecting Shower To Consumer Unit

Should be fairly straight forward as I am just swapping the old 6mm cable and uprating the MCB. Can I do this and open up the consumer unit just by switching off the main switch on the CU.

Yes. But all the usual caveats about making sure everything is actually 'dead' before working on it apply. If you don't have a voltage measuring device like a multimeter, then get one before you proceed further.

Hope that helps.