Another earth spike question

[Gyn_Paul]

Probably one which Punch can answer off the top of his head...

I've not designed it this way, but it looks as if most of the electrics will run along the east side of my house and barns, while the plumbing is more-or-less all on the west side. Having earth-bonded all the piping and anything metal, there is a tempting hole in the o/s wall just next to one of the pipes. It is however, on the opposite side of the house to the existing earth spike. Does my earth bonding HAVE to go back to the SAME spike, or can I put another one in the ground on the west?

Would this be against the regulations ? 

Would I be inviting an earth-loop hum ?

Paul

[Punch]

From your main tableau electique there should be one main earth (usually 10 or 16mm) than passes via a barrette de mesure, (copper link)  directly to earth via a rod or a plate or whatever.

This should be ideally faily near the tableau. However there is nothing to stop you running a secondary earth to the west side to pick up the earth bonding for this pipework, this could be in 6mm and connected directly to the earth bar in the tableau itself.

The important thing is that all equipotential and extraneous metalwork in bathrooms is bonded commonly to each other and to earth, and that the main earth has a resistance of less than 100 ohms (for a 500milliamp EDF disjoncteur)

Hope this helps,

Paul

 

[Gyn_Paul]

Thanks for that Paul,

As usual I subbed the question in my head as I typed and missed a bit out.

I should have said I have an exisited earth spike outside the front door on the east side of the house connected by what looks like 10mm CU nud. It test-trips happily enough so I assume it's OK.

The idea of a second spike on the other side of the house was to prevent having to run a hefty-great earth wire from one side of the house to the other, back to the tableau.

Here's another question ... purely for interest..

If you were to plumb an entire house in plastic (with acrylic bath, composition sink, china lavabo etc ) with not a bit of copper tube anywhere, would you still earth-bond all the taps on the basis that the water in the pipes represented a potential return path ?

Not an issue for me as I'm using good old copper, bu tI'm interested to know.

regards

paul 

 

[Punch]

If you were to plumb an entire house in plastic (with acrylic bath, composition sink, china lavabo etc ) with not a bit of copper tube anywhere, would you still earth-bond all the taps on the basis that the water in the pipes represented a potential return path ?

No I wouldn't as it is not necessary in France if all plumbing is in plastic, although in the Uk this was and still probably is not the case. In fact we often plumb entire houses in France using PER (polyethylene reticulé) this way, with little or no copper.  I would not recommend the solvent weld plastic pipe though!

Paul