Multistranded Earth Cable?

[cwcw]

When changing a socket plate I found that the face plate was earthed back to the back box with a bit of earth cable which has multiple thin strands of copper inside the green/yellow sheath. I'd say there were about 8 thin strands. The earth coming from the main cable, together with the live and neutral, is just one single thicker strand, i.e. what I expected. This connects to the faceplate. It looks like the other bit of cable has then been added to earth the back box.

Does this sound ok or should the earth cable only have one thick strand? They are similar in thickness overall.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Probably seven.

It's fine, just a piece of wire.

 

[Spark123]

It sounds like the wire we use in conduits, it is fine.

 

[phatboy]

I found the same on an installation using singles in conduit, and also in bonding to pipework on a couple of other installations.

I have re-used some of the surplus bonding cable for linking backbox to faceplate in the past.....

 

[Spark123]

Is it big enough for pipework bonding?

 

[cwcw]

Is it big enough for pipework bonding?

Not sure if that was for me or for phatboy. If for me, I've no idea, just a casual DIYer changing face plates.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Is it big enough for pipework bonding?

Yes.

 

[securespark]

2.5 is OK if mechanically protected....

 

[cwcw]

No, it was much thinner than that, fewer strands and they didn't look twisted like that. Socket is all put back now though...?

 

[cwcw]

It could just be the scale of the photo, it just looks like more and thicker strands than what I saw. I will try to put up a photo at some point, just means I need to take the socket out again but don't think the wife will appreciate losing the TV at the moment.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Even if that were a photo of the same size cable as yours, you couldn't tell anything from it, because there's no way to know what scale it is. If it were life sized on my monitor, at my screen resolution and my browser zoom factor, it would be 70mm².

But it looks like 7 strands, so it'll be a photo of a 1.5 - 25mm².


BTW - what happened to my post?