Shocks off a bath

Dave_liverpool

Or any time served certs then, fair enough Corgi is for Gas but some people accept the lowest quote thinking they are saving money when infact they are inviting problems.

Mind I wouldn't want a metal bath, the water has to be a few degree higher to keep the temp up, I prefer a lower elec bill and with a modern plastic set.

BobProperty

baldelectrician wrote:

Wrong

If as bath is metal, the pipes are metal, and there are other electrics in the bathroom it all requires cross bonding.

see link to iee site.
http://www.iee.org/Publish/WireRegs/EarthingPlasticPipes.pdf

I've got that .pdf, can you point to the bit you are referring to, please. Because the quote below appears in that .pdf on page 4. It is also quoted on
http://www.johnguest.com/linkpages/SPFinstADV.html

"Metal baths supplied by metal pipes do not require supplementary bonding if all the pipes are bonded and there is no other connection of the bath to earth."
Now I don't understand how a metal pipe connected to a tap on a metal bath conducts to the metal bath itself, but there it is in black and white in an IEE document.

BobProperty

Dave_liverpool wrote:

Sounds to me like they have plumbed in a tin bath!

Is he a registered electrican, there are new rules concerning electics in Bathrooms.

Don't do this on the cheap or you may well live to regret shoddy workmanship or worse. Check on your estimate/invoice for his Corgi registration.

Wanty (as she apparently is known) has had a bathroom re-fitted. Where has it been said there was any electrical work involved? And ditto robby-01, you don't need to be CORGI reg to fit a bathroom.

robby-01 can you post a link or paste the contents of BS7671 onsite guide :section 4.5 page 26 ?

iwanttosave_2

Awww bless your hearts

We live in a council house so the work is being done by a sub-contractor (absolute cowboys, you should see the state of next doors :rolleyes:) so its nothing we have paid for, and didn't get any choice in the bath type at all.

They prob put a metal bath in so it will last longer. They are doing a complete refit of kitchen, bathroom, boiler and rads. 6-7 weeks aparently, but if they sent more than one man a day they might actually get some work done :mad: (we have had no kitchen for a week :mad: nowt but a sink and cooker :mad:)

I have no clue of these section thingys you are going on about, but it was just a plumber we had to fit the bathroom, just one on his own, sparky came this morning when we went down to the cabins to complain.

Oh and people call me wanty because its easier to type.

Thank you for listening to my rant, but 1 week into it, I am peed off like you couldn't begin to belive.

robby-01

no.cant be arsed .Sick of people posting wrong info on this site.
The facts are in the wiring regulations a bathroom is classed as a special location .that means a location were the risk of electric shock is increased.
In a domestic installation that means rooms containing a bath or a shower and areas around swimming pools.
In such areas local supplementary bonding is required.
A metal bath needs to be connected to that .
That has always been the case ask any qualified sparks .
There is no requirement for supplementary bonding in kitchens at all and that includes the metal sink top .

The fault the op describes is potentially very serious. The installation needs checking.
It is not a job for a plumber, a gas fitter or a handyman with a book. It is a job for a decent sparks with experience in inspection and testing.
It may turn out to be something and nothing ,although18 years experience in this field tells me it isnt.

HugoSP

Bob Property

The earthing that is referred to on this site is actually known as equipotential bonding.

Has anyone ever seen that clip of Richard Hammond sitting in a car with an artificial lightning bolt going through it? IIRC it was oon Top Gear. The reason why he was unhurt is that no part of him was earthed. The whole car around him rose to the same potential of several thousand volts and there was no way of discharging the energy from him to earth Therefore if he touched the car in several places as he no doubt was doing at the time, he would feel the same potential difference as if there was no lightning bolt going through the car. Had there been a hole in the floor pan of the car and he had put his foot on the tarmac when the ligtning hit he would have been killed.

Equipotential bonding works on the same principle.

All extraneous contuctive parts (that is to say items that could become live in an earth fault) should be cross bonded with the CPCs of all circuits being used within the special location.

This way, if there is an earth fault in any of the installation within the protective zone then all extraneous conductive parts will be at the same potential. Hence there will be no voltage difference and hence no current can pass from one to the other through a person.

If anyone is interested the basic requirements for equipotential bonding, a quick look at the IEE On Site Guide will explain all in brief detail. I'm sure there are loads of schematics on the net as well.

If a shock is being felt then there are 2 possible causes.

1) Static, as someone has mentioned here before. However I personally think this is unlikely. The only real test for this is to bath with the main switch on your consumer unit switched off. In fact this could be a good test - switch off the electricity via the main switch so the whole house is isolated then see if the problem persists. In doing this you are ensuring that there is no potential for electric shock in the whole house - so perfectly safe.

2) More likely - earth fault and lack of suitable equipotential bonding. I would like to know exactly how the electrician used the 'volt meter'.

The earth fault should be looked at first. The first thing they should do is unplug everything and carry out ideally a full PIR on your electrical installation. This is a job for a C and G 2391 qualified or registered electrician. This should pick up any earth faults and/or bad phase to phase or phase to cpc resistance on your electrical installation/wiring. That is to say there should be a minimum resistance of 0.5 million ohms between each individual wire on any given circuit.

Any fault(s) should be found by this then rectified.

Once the earth fault is sorted then you can look to the equipotential bonding. Personally I would not look for voltages between extraneous conductive parts or from these to the various circuits within the bathroom. I would look fo resistance at first. It's difficult to explain to non electricians here but the earths of all circuits within this area and all metal parts that have a potential to go to earth should be crossbonded. That is to say the earths of your electric towel rail supply, your lighting circuit within the bathroom and your electric shower if you have one, your bath, your copper pipes for heating and water and any other item that could conduct to earth, should be cross bonded.

Russ66

Did the electrician check for voltage with the central heating on?

It may be picking up something from the boiler, but only when it's on IE: Timer etc.:o

iwanttosave_2

No he didn't, but I am sure I was running the taps earlier (to test them before drawing a bath) and the boiler was on and didn't get a shock.

Hopefully, it was that box that has now been disconnected.


If it helps any arguments, my OH took a bath last night, and didn't get a shock till he had one foot out the bath on the floor (just bare floor boards at the moment) and had another foot in the bath. He said it wasn't anything big, but could feel the current through his legs one to another.

Cagey

In my experiance plumbers tend to leave earth wires off when they renew pipes. As you say Robbie you do not have to be Corgie registered to plumb in a bathroom but I think they may be more up to scratch with regs` if they have done a Corgie course.

If this is a council house get the council to get it sorted out right away before someone gets killed. Don`t use the bath until it is fixed.

iwanttosave_2

I just got another shock

Only with my left hand though, so its got to be me??