Earth to Consumer Unit

[JonR]

[come in Consumer Unit ]

Hi All,

Would be grateful for any help please.

There is a switch between my meter and consumer unit. This is earthed locally.

The consumer unit is also earthed (if everything is sound - the cable looks to have been there for 20+ years). The cable run is about 4 metres before it is connected to an earth point outside the house.

Unfortunately this cable passes through the wooden door frame of my front door. I am having a new door installed and need to move this earth cable. I do not want to drill through the new PVC frame to replace the existing connection.

Three questions really:

1) does there need to be a second earth connection to the system? ie: from the consumer unit itself?

2) if there does need to be a second connection, can I secure the second one (the one I need to move) to the same place as the first one?

3) if 2) is not possible, can I leave the second earth connection "disconnected" for a couple of days until I can get an electrician out to do a proper job?

Many thanks for any replies,

Cheers,

Jon

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

Can you upload a picture of your arrangement?
Does the earth cable lead to an earth rod/electrode?
Has your system got RCD protection?
It's not unusual to have 3 earth cables connected to your system.
An Earth Conductor and 2 cables for main bonding.
Don't disconnect earth, unless you turn the whole system off.

 

[JonR]

Hi & thanks for the quick reply.

3 photos attached (hopefully).

Does this provide what is needed? The cable with the red hand-drawn "circle" is the one that goes out of the house through the door frame...........

Cheers


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[JonR]

Retrying to add full size pictures, apologies......

Overview

• JonR
• 18 Sep 2011
• 1

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Indoor earth connection

• JonR
• 18 Sep 2011
• 1

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Top

• JonR
• 18 Sep 2011
• 1

3

 

[Spark123]

The pics suggest an old TT system which is protected by a voltage operated earth leakage circuit breaker.
These are no longer recognised by the regs as parallel paths can cause them to be uneffective.
Your consumer unit is a split load with an RCD covering half, the other half is only protected by the VOELCB.
You need an electrician to sort this out properly.

 

[chivers67]

Hi Jon,
does the power feeding your house come from a pole?

It sounds like you have a TT system which has an external earth rod. Can you get a clearer picture of the white box with Chilton written on it?

It looks like an old RCD think it best to get an electrician in before the work on the door is carried out

 

[JonR]

Thanks again for replies.

Pic of box on way but will take a while to upload etc.

Fully intend to get an electrician to sort this out - suspect I may end up getting the whole house rewired as an extension of this job as I have no idea what has been done before and much of it is old.

Main issue is that my new door is being fitted tomorrow morning - I thought there were just cables going to external lights passing through the door frame (which I successfully disconnected & removed this afternoon). Then I noticed this troublesome "additional" cable.

Would it be really bad to turn everything off & move the external earth connection to the same spot as the internal one? Sorry to be naive.

Pic to follow.......

Cheers

 

[JonR]

Yes the electricity comes from a pole.

Pic of Chilton box below:

Untitled

• JonR
• 18 Sep 2011
• 1

Thanks

 

[Spark123]

That is a VOELCB as I said above
You need an electrician to have a look at the system, the old earthing should have been connected through the VOELCB, i.e. earth spike to one terminal on VOELCB, CU to other terminal on VOELCB.
These devices are no longer recognised by the regs and havent been for some time.
The more modern RCD does not have an earth connection. I wouldn't be suprised if an electrician tells you that you need a new consumer unit.

 

[JonR]

Great knowledge!

Will definately get an electrician. More than happy to invest in a new consumer unit and many thanks for the advice.

Back to my immediately pressing problem - can I connect both the (apparent) earth cables to the same place internally? I don't want a bodge job here as 100% need this to be safe, however do need a workaround in the interim.

Cheers

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I'm not sure what you mean by connecting both earth cables to the same place internally.

You cannot get rid of the earth conductor going to the earth rod outside, and you cannot get rid of the bonding conductor going to that (gas?) pipe.

 

[Spark123]

It appears to me that your current earthing is the small cable from the VOELCB to the earth rod, there also appears to be a cable from the VOELCB to the consumer unit earth rail.
The other cable you see out of the top of the CU could a main protective eq. bonding conductor to water pipes etc (which can render the VOELCB useless by creating parallel paths for fault current to flow which is why I said you need a sparky asap.)
I wouldn't touch the earthing for the moment, as I said above the VOELCB relies on the earth spike being connected to a separate terminal to the earth from the consumer unit, wether or not it is still servicable is another matter.

 

[westie101]

As a suggestion to get you around your dilemma of having the new door fitted tomorrow.

Perhaps, after switching the power off you could remove the cable from the wooden frame and re fit it between the new frame and the wall (even if you have to provide a small channel. Once the electrical side has been properly investigated, if the cable can be removed the channel could be easily filled

 

[Spark123]

Was going to suggest searching for an electrician here:
http://www.competentperson.co.uk/
but the search facility is absoultely pants, I can't even enter the first 4 letters of my postcode now

 

[chivers67]

http://www.flameport.com/electric/old_elcb/chilton_elcb.cs4?1276881474038633038518132138734=0

Jon see link FYI