Earth Bonding on boiler?

keystone

pararct wrote: »

Largely irrelevant today,

Largely irrelevant post..

more and more houses are going over to plastic pipework on the internal runs. Your mains supply could also be plastic or a similair tough material. These materials will not conduct electricity in any case

You have no idea whether the OPs pipework is in plastic, copper or lead for that matter. In any event you may not connect plastic pipework directly to a boiler - there must be at least a metre of copper and if the surveyor can only see half of that then he also has no reason to know whether or not its plastic pipe thereafter. Also the gas MUST be in copper.

= no benefit from an earthing cable.

Suggest you also look up the difference between earthing and bonding.

Surveyors will include it in their reports as it gives them a little fluff to fill them out with....

Yes you are right but largely its CYA rather than padding.

Cheers

madmish00

Have you had a FULL buildings survey or was it a house buyers report?

It was a full builing survey by a structural engineer (due to a possible concern about structural movement raised by the banks valuer)

Think I'll just wait and see what paperwork appears and work it out from there. If it is only a small job I'm not too concerned just didn't want to be forking out for yet another thing.

prudryden

Earthing is an option, until it isn't.

pararct

RenovationMan wrote: »

All exposed piping and metalwork (radiators, boiler, water pipes) should be linked the the earth terminal in your consumer unit (fuse box). However, with modern RCD protected consumer units it's virtually impossible to get a dangerous shock, so dont worry.

Provided premises are equipped with modern RCD devices, plenty are not still.

keystone

RenovationMan wrote: »

All exposed piping and metalwork (radiators, boiler, water pipes) should be linked the the earth terminal in your consumer unit (fuse box).

If they go anywhere they go to the MET not the CU but frankly I don't agree with you. Your post is far too general and each case needs looking at on an individual basis. The only place where supplementary equipotential bonding is a 100% requirement is in a bath/shower room or pool/sauna facility if you are that flush but then you would use the CPC of an appropriate bathroom circuit. I do concede that such would link back to the CU though.

Cheers

neil277

madmish00 wrote: »

Just got our structural survey back and quite relieved that the property seems to be generally OK.

One thing that has come up that I don't fully understand:

"It was noted that the service pipework to the boiler has not been Earth Bonded in accordance with current regulations."

From a bit of googling this seems like something quite important that should have been done when the current owners had the new boiler fitted (not sure when this was but within last 5 years)

As it is a bank holiday weekend and I can't really start ringing round electricians - does anyone have any idea how much it would cost to get this rectified? And if it is something I should worry about getting sorted before exchange or after.

Thanks

Hi
If you are buying the house anything over two bedroms will need a PIR Report, once the PIR Report is done all the faults must be corrected and only then a certificate can be issuesd for sale or rent.

Only us a http://www.competentperson.co.uk/ not a cowboy, bonding is very important.
I have to disagree with £30.00 cowboy yes, qualified electrician no.

If you get an electric shock and you are touching metal the current will travel all through your body and through your heart which could or will kill, thats why bonding is very important it will reduce the current as it will be earthed.

Thanks

Neil

dtaylor84

neil277 wrote: »

If you get an electric shock and you are touching metal the current will travel all through your body and through your heart which could or will kill, thats why bonding is very important it will reduce the current as it will be earthed.

That's almost the exact opposite of purpose of earth bonding. If you get an electric shock and are touching an earthed piece of metal, it will increase the current (and the chance of dying) compared to touching unearthed metal. The point of bonding is to ensure that any electrical fault cannot make the metal live - so touching the pipe won't give you a shock.