Thanks.
I've found so many different opinions on this.
installing main earth bonding conductors to gas and water services
- Thread starter HawkEye244
- Start date
I've found so many different opinions on this.
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You're not wrong to think that has been stated - but the statement is wrong.
John's and my posts are not opinions.
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The instruction in the regs about bonding on the consumer side of an 'insulating section' was always plain wrong. Whoever wrote it, and whoever allowed it to persist for many years, simply did not understand the concept of bonding.
However, in the situation you now have, I'm not sure what you mean by "the customer side" - 'customer side' of what?
Kind Regards, John
of the meter
When it is a metallic gas service pipe there is a possibility of high amperage current through the bonding.
Bonding on the consumer side of the meter would mean the bond current would have to flow through the meter, Are gas meters resilient to current flowing through them ?
Bonding to the supply side would protect the gas meter from adverse electrical conditions.
Bonding on the consumer side of the meter would mean the bond current would have to flow through the meter, Are gas meters resilient to current flowing through them ?
Bonding to the supply side would protect the gas meter from adverse electrical conditions.
Right - so that brings us back to the nonsense of BS7671. What it says is:
... and I can't find any way of reading that which does not mean that one should bond on the consumer's side of the meter (no-one is quite sure what an "isolation point" is, but that doesn't matter if there is a meter).
However, electrically speaking, to bond on the consumer's side of the meter makes no sense. Electrically, what matters is to bond any conductor which enters the building from underground and that logically should be done as close as possible to the point of entry, regardless of any meter. If there is no electrical continuity across the meter, then nothing on the consumer's side of it can possibly qualify as an extraneous-c-p, so nothing on the consumer's side of an 'insulating' meter can possible require bonding.
Unfortunately, therefore, one has to choose between doing what is sensible/required, electrically, and what the (incorrect) regulation says. If yoh want to 'cover all bases' (primarily people undertaking EICRs!), you could do both - i.e. bond both on the consumer's side of the meter and (if there is any) also bond any metal pipe within the property which is on the supplier's side of the meter - the former to 'satisfy the regs' and the latter to do what is required electrically. Given that the consumer-side pipework (if metal) will almost inevitably be 'incidentally earthed', the (electrically) unnecessary bonding on the consumer's side will very rarely create any hazard.
Kind Regards, John
Thanks for this, where didit come from?
I drew it.
When my gas meter was changed a few years ago, they mounted the new one in a metal bracket that clamps the in- and out- bound ports together:
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You'll find they're not clamped in there, the unions are very likely to free to rotate if it weren't for the pipes. Yesterday 'er in doors spoke to the gas man to make sure Henrys garage didn't get any smaller and he simply rotated the meter to create a bit more space. I believe the idea of the plate is to be screwed to the wall to hang the meter but rarely done inside the house.
On closer inspection - both inbound and outbound unions have a groove into which the plate fits quite tightly, and appear to be in close contact with the plate, although as you say, not actually clamped. Perhaps clamping them would be a design improvement.
Fair enough.
As I said, the (electrically) unnecessary bonding on the consumer's side of an (electrical) discontinuity would create an unnecessary hazard (by unnecessarily creating more earthed metal for people to touch) were it not for the fact that virtually all present-day gas and water (if copper) plumbing installations will be 'incidentally' earthed (by boilers, CH pumps/valves, immersions etc. etc.). That wasn't necessarily true in the past. My parents and grandparents had gas installations which supplied only gas cookers (with nothing 'electrical' about them and gas fires (again, nothing electrical), so the pipework was not necessarily earthed by anything.
I only bother to bond on the supplier's side of my water meter. My water supplier, in their infinite wisdom, installed a pathetic G/Y cable (maybe 2.5mm², quite possibly less) across the meter. If I obeyed BS7671 and bonded only on my side of the meter, any very high currents through the bonding would simply have melted their bit of cable!
Kind Regards, John
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