Fitting a bathroom sink & Earthing a metal bath

[bod42]

Do you tile and fit the sink onto the tiles or fit the sink and tile round it?
I was going tile 1st but the sink bellys out at the back in the middle and would leave gaps either side.
Is the sink faulty?
If I fit the 1st it can be sunk into the paster, but should I need to?

Also I'm fitting a metal bath, How to I go about earthing it?
None of the pipes in the house have been earthed!

 

[Tindog]

Not sure what you mean by bellys out (an overweight sink )...but I've always tiled after fitting the bath and the sink. I don't think it really matters (then again, I'm not an expert) as long as you get a good seal afterwards. Also, you'll save on tiles.

As for the fact that nothing is earthed in your house, that is a major, major issue. Electricity and copper piping go really well together - too well!! Remember electrical cable is made from copper because it's a good conductor and therefore, so are your water pipes! You should make it a prioirity to earth your sink pipes, bathroom pipes, toliet feed pipe and the gas central heating pipes (and anything else I haven't thought of).

If you need to earth your metal bath, just run a cable attached to the underneath of the bath to the soon to be earthed (!!) bath taps.

Seriously, I can't stress enough how dangerous it is not to have earthed copper piping in your home.

 

[breezer]

that's not quite how you earth a bathroom , for more info see this

 

[bod42]

After bonding all the pipes etc together to I need to take the earth cable back to the consumer unit. If so could I take it to the earth to the shower which is the loft and be easy to do?

 

[breezer]

you shouln't it should go all the way back to the consumers unit as a separate 6mm cable, but it can follow the same route.

Reason is, just suppose, your shower earth gives up, you have no earth

 

[bod42]

On the diy doctor site (your link) it says its not a requirement to go back to the consumer unit. Does this mean I will be within the regulalions just to bond the pipes. Its just that taking a wire back to the consumer unit will be a lot of work.

 

[breezer]

is up to you, if it was me i would.

 

[spark]

This post was started a few weeks ago now, but if it's still applicable, you are not required to take the supplementary equipotential bonding conductor within a bathroom back to the consumer unit (or main earth terminal if it's not within the consumer unit). Regulation 601-04-01 states 'Local supplementrary bonding complying with Regulation 547-03 shall be provided connecting together the terminal on the protective conductor of each circuit supplying Class 1 (earthed) and Class 2 (not earthed but double insulated) equipment in zones 1,2 and 3, and extraneous conductive parts (metal baths, pipes etc..) in these zones'. You are not required to use 6mm cable; the recomendation is to connect all these parts together without breaking this conductor (stripping off the insulation without cutting the copper and looping in and out of a terminal or clamp). If you've ever tried doing this with a 4mm, you'll appreciate how hard this would be with a 6mm. The idea of not cutting/breaking this conductor, is to avoid the loss of earth contunity to the other parts if one connection was to become loose or undone.

I'm not disagreeing with breezer because there's no harm in doing what breezer said, it's just not a requirement, it's difficult to use 6mm and can be major work to get the cable back to the intake. Dare I say it, but the reg's have undergone some revision in recent years, and those techniques described are a bit old school, but there's nothing wrong with them.

I've written slightly more detail in one of the other posts by ChrisR about bonding in the electric forum. It is absolutely essential that you provide main equipotential bonding, I cannot stress this enough.