High earth/no earth problems

choccyface2006

Hi

I have lived in my rented house with my two children for nearly 4 years, recently when British gas came to do their yearly inspections they attatched an "At Risk" notice to the electrics because they said that there was no earth to the propety and it needed to be sorted out asap.

So they sent in their electricians who said that the earth was too high and gave me a notice to forward to the landlord. After speaking to British Gas he couldn't make any sense from what they were saying so he sent round an independant electrian that he knows to have a look. He told me that the earth was way too high so the house wasn't earthed and was dangerous.

To fix the problem will need a 3 foot copper earth in the ground which will connect to the electric, gas and water, the trouble is that the water mains are in the kitchen at one end of this long house and the others are at either side of the living room at the other end of the house and I have laminate throughout. He mentioned about using attic space but that is a bedroom and again laminated, so it upstairs so its a nightmare!

So, my questions are, is this really dangerous? We have lived here four years without problems, or have we just been lucky? Is there a real risk of electrocution or shocks? (there is a working trip switch) and also when this is fixed, will the laminate all have to be ripped up or is there a way of working round it? (the laminate is showing signs of age so I would prefer it to be ripped up and replaced or even better carpet laying down) How long would this kind of work last?

Thanks

Sarah x

Canucklehead

Hi

I assume you live in a rural area and electric supply is overhead? That would explain the earth rod. Otherwise the earth is provided by the lead sheath on the incoming supply (or it's PME, but earth is still on the incoming supply)
It's not dangerous untill you have a problem, when it could fatal.
You need not rip up the laminate, the earth can be run anywhere,inside or outside.
How long? No idea.
I would give this urgent attention, or your landlord should.

Corgi Guy.

choccyface2006

Thanks Corgi Guy


Yes, we live in a rural village and the house is quite old but had been completly modenised before I moved in, shame they didn't discover the problem then.

Do you know if theres anything we can do short term to make things safer? My landlord will hopefully sort this out as soon as possible.

Sarah

Incisor

choccyface2006 wrote: »

... so he sent round an independant electrian that he knows to have a look. He told me that the earth was way too high so the house wasn't earthed and was dangerous.

To fix the problem will need a 3 foot copper earth in the ground which will connect to the electric, gas and water, the trouble is that the water mains are in the kitchen at one end of this long house and the others are at either side of the living room at the other end of the house and I have laminate throughout. He mentioned about using attic space but that is a bedroom and again laminated, so it upstairs so its a nightmare!

So, my questions are, is this really dangerous? We have lived here four years without problems, or have we just been lucky? Is there a real risk of electrocution or shocks? (there is a working trip switch) ...

Yes it is dangerous. Although the trip switch may work [how do you know it does?] it may be the wrong sort - You need a Residual Current device ideally [also called a Current operated trip, as opposed to Voltage].

There are 2 things to expect in a well earthed installation:

• Earth wire connections between all services so you can't get a shock when for example you touch gas and water pipes simultaneously
• Preferably a good solid metallic path back to the substation [canucklehead was referring to this], so that any fault will be sure to give enough current to blow your fuses quickly.

In your case, the earth rod is being offered as a second best, although the local electricity distributor could almost certainly give you PME, which is a metallic path back to the substation. PME would probably cost more than the earth rod, but is far more satisfactory.

The big problem is running a bondwire between the water and the other services, which is the one you are having difficulty finding a route for. If you omit this part, but do the rest, arguably you are going to make the installation more dangerous, particularly for people working on gas and water together. It is to protect their staff, I imagine, that BG are testing earthing.

No good solutions from me for routing the wire, apart from suggesting running it fixed to the water pipe itself to the nearest point to the other services. But hopefully you can understand a little bit more about what is required.

Canucklehead

Do you know if theres anything we can do short term to make things safer? My landlord will hopefully sort this out as soon as possible.

Avoid using anything outside in the garden like the lawn mower unless you have one of those trip switches that plug into the socket first.

Corgi Guy.

ic

A thought, instead of running cables through/round the house, would it be possible to just have two earth rods instead? One at the front and one at the back?

Incisor

ic wrote: »

A thought, instead of running cables through/round the house, would it be possible to just have two earth rods instead? One at the front and one at the back?

No. Emphatically No. The services [gas, water] need bonding at their points of entry. OK, you could do 2 earth spikes as well as running the cable, but definitely not instead of.

choccyface2006

Thanks for the comments Incisor/corgi guy/ic, I think I understand it better now.

Its a mid terrace house, would this make going round the house instead of through it a less viable option? Or could it go over the roof?

The trip switch does work, I dropped my iron and when I tried to plug it in again it tripped (I bought a new one after that!) A few other times its tripped too, I haven't got a lawn so no lawnmower thank goodness.

Sarah

Incisor

choccyface2006 wrote: »

Thanks for the comments Incisor/corgi guy/ic, I think I understand it better now.

I was hoping

Its a mid terrace house, would this make going round the house instead of through it a less viable option? Or could it go over the roof?

round the side on an end terrace, but on a mid terrrace, you need to be ingenious. I would tend to follow the water system to the boiler and the gas system to the gas, but via the roof could work.

The trip switch does work, I dropped my iron and when I tried to plug it in again it tripped (I bought a new one after that!) A few other times its tripped too

That's reassuring, but if it is a voltage trip, it might not work so well after this work - it might blow fuses instead.