Earth wire for metal plug sockets

phatbear

I recently purchased some metal plug sockets for one of our bedrooms and the instructions state they need to earthed to the back boxes, which are also metal.

My question is i have struggled to purchase just a couple of metres of earth wire, ive got some other light swithches etc to do, so had the genius of buying some t&e by the metre from wilkos, they dont sell earth wire on its own, and strip the earth cable out of it.

So just to make sure the wire i bought was 1.5mm cable which it claims is suitable for 16amp or 3840watts at 240volts, so am i right in thinking the earth cable in this cable will be ok for the sockets?

wealdroam

phatbear wrote: »

I recently purchased some metal plug sockets for one of our bedrooms and the instructions state they need to earthed to the back boxes, which are also metal.

My question is i have struggled to purchase just a couple of metres of earth wire, ive got some other light swithches etc to do, so had the genius of buying some t&e by the metre from wilkos, they dont sell earth wire on its own, and strip the earth cable out of it.

So just to make sure the wire i bought was 1.5mm cable which it claims is suitable for 16amp or 3840watts at 240volts, so am i right in thinking the earth cable in this cable will be ok for the sockets?

You'll still need some green/yellow sleeving.

The earth conductor in 1.5mm² T&E is not suitable for your purpose. The earth conductor in that cable is smaller than 1.5mm².

Why not buy this from B&Q:

Single Core Conduit Cable 1.5mm² 6491B Green & Yellow 5m

or similar elsewhere?

Biggles

I would have assumed that the screws fixing it to the back box would count for that purpose?

Hasbeen

Biggles wrote: »

I would have assumed that the screws fixing it to the back box would count for that purpose?

No. The socket earth connection has to be connected to the back box earth connection usually by the 2.5mm cable earth and covered by green/yellow sleeving.:)

stator

Best bet is B&Q. Other places are a lot cheaper if you are buying in bulk. But you don't want 100m of Earth Sleeving, so go to B&Q

flashg67

You can buy sleeving by the metre from 99p on ebay

TheCyclingProgrammer

Biggles wrote: »

I would have assumed that the screws fixing it to the back box would count for that purpose?

Practically speaking, so long as there is a fixed lug, it should do but I believe it's considered best practice and more reliable to have a separate earth connection to the backbox.

If you search it seems to be a common point of discussion on the IET forums and from what I can tell the consensus is that for the sake of a small piece of extra wire and sleeving, why wouldn't you? You could also argue that if a fault were to develop while the face plate was not attached, it would no longer be earthed.

I'm sure that there are many back boxes out there relying on the screw connection for earthing but that doesn't make it right I guess.

rtho782

Electricians will use the earth wire from the 2.5mm T+E cable.

You pull the earth wire to strip the outer sheathing, cut some off for the earthing tail.