An electrician said my electric is not earthed to my water supply. What does it mean?

Question

And how much would it cost?

Answer 1

He means your electrical supply is not grounded to your incoming water pipe. When a service is connected to a house, by NEC code the water pipe must be grounded to your supply. This keeps your water system in your house from being electrified. This is not an expensive fix. You need an electrician to come in and "bond" to your water pipe. They will take a grounding strap to your supply pipe, and run a ground wire to your grounding buss in your meter. This should not cost more than $200 dollars for professional help. If you have a friend that is an electrician, he would probably do it for less. P.S. This is not just for code, this is for your safety. Make sure you get this done soon.

Answer 2

that means that you should run a copper wire, about 10 gauge, from the metal, or grounding (earthing) lugs on your electrical panel and connect that to a water pipe using a special clamp.

Why did he not do it? It ain't hard labor.

You can also take that wire and strap it to a copper rod about 6 feet long (2 meters), pound the copper rod into the ground until only about 1/3 of a meter is above ground. What you need is to provide something to deter electrical shock. This is not rocket science. All taking the wire to the water pipes, and I hope they are copper, is to do the same thing - get the ground into the earth. However it is important to know if your pipes outside the house are metal or PVC plastic. The plastic will accomplish nothing and then putting in the rod into the gound is your only option. But if you are sure that you have metal piping all the way to the main supply, you can connect that wire to any pipe in the house, probably cold water supply is the best, making sure that the connection is secure, but not so tight as to crimp or break your pipes.

Total cost would be the cost of the wire, which is sold by the foot or meter, plus the cost of the clamp, which would be a couple of dollars US, but if you use the copper rod method, you need to buy a six or eight foot rod which should not be too expensive.

I think it is absolutely stupid taht the electrician did not do that on the spot, there would have been a labor cost and your costs would have been higher, but since he was there, he should have done it.

Answer 3

This is done in the UK because many buildings are supplied with a single phase supply cable where the neutral and earth conductors are combined. Close to the electricity meter this conductor is divided into two, the earth terminal and the wire going to the neutral busbar in the consumer unit. In the event of a break in a neutral connection this earth terminal provided by the supply company will be at a potential (relative to the true earth) which is the same as the live wire (phase wire) coming to the home.

If a person was to touch the metal (earthed casing) of an electrical device during the above fault condition and be in contact with a metal object connected to a true earth then they would get an electric shock.

Because all metal objects (such as water pipes) are connected together, all the metal objects in the building will be at the same potential, hence it will not be possible to get a shock by touching two 'earthed' objects at once.

Answer 4

There seems to be some confusion over the water pipe being earthed, water pipes are or should be Main Equipotentialy Bonded. This means that if any metal pipework or structure passing into your dwelling from an outside source that has a potential to earth should be connected to the main earthing terminal (MET bar).
Depending on the type of electrical supply this would normally require a minimum of 10mm earth wire connected to your pipework at the point of entry on the consumers side, via an earth clamp BS951 including label "ELECTRICAL EARTH DO NOT REMOVE".
If you have a plastic supply into your dwelling disregard the above as it's not required.
It has been mentioned in another answer that the kitchen & bathroom pipework should be earthed! this is not required, supplementary bonding is, but only in the bathroom/shower rooms (wet areas) kitchens are no longer required to have supplementary bonding unless they are commercial.
Seek proffesional advise.
Hope this has been helpful.

It has been said that you still have to main bond your incoming services, even if the supply is in plastic. Wrong, you are not earthing the pipework within the dwelling but making sure that all earth paths have the same potential, plastic is not earthy? NICEIC Inspector, check it out, I have.

Answer 5

Older building codes required the house to be grounded (earthed) to the water supply pipe. That only worked if your water supply was metal pipe, either copper or steel. New codes require the electric supply be grounded to the reinforcing steel in the footings. If your electric panel is not grounded this can be easily solved by pounding a 10' ground rod into the ground beneath the electric panel and installing a ground wire to the rod and to a ground buss in the panel.

Answer 6

It is not permitted to use a water pipe as a means of earthing in the uk. However the consumers earth terminal in the consumers unit should have an Earthing conductor which should connect to earth via the supply cable earth terminal or earth rod. This terminal should also have earth BONDING terminals which should connect (by means of earth clamps) to the mettalic gas and water service pipes. These are NOT a means of earthing. There should also be local bonding in kitchens and bathrooms to metallic conductive items. There are differences in requirements depending on the type of supply, TN-S, TN-C-S, etc

It could cost from £30 to £120.00 depending what is required!

(L fish98 is your other best answer so far)

Answer 7

as some of the people above have already stated, BS 7671 IEE WIRING REGULATIONS state that all incoming services must be connected to the main earthing terminal of the consumer unit.

all that means is an unbroken cable "10mm squared conductor in usual domestic applications" connecting the earth terminal to the incoming mains water, no more than 600mm away from the stop tap. same can be said for GAS, OIL, STRUCTURAL STEEL and LIGHTENING PROTECTION.

coincidentally reading one of your other posts, they mention it is not necessary to do this when your pipework is plastic..... they are wrong. you still need to have made provision for the installation of a copper pipe, meaning the cable and connection should be there, even if it is not going to work.

for a normal sized house, clipped around the wall outside, about 100 quid

Answer 8

First thing to do is look at your water pipes. If they are plastic, call your electrician and say, Right! (keeping in mind that it may be grounded another way). Then go to your electric panel (box where fuses or breakers are located), and look for an uninsulated (Large gauge) wire coming from the box. Follow it and you'll probably find that it goes outside to the ground. If you do have steel, galvanized plumbing, check your local code for gauge of wire, and hook one end to the ground within the box and the other end to the pipe as near to exiting the house as possible. Ground straps for the pipe are cheap enough at Lowes or other home improvement store. The heavy copper ground wire will be your biggest expense.

Answer 9

Well, in the days when water pipes were metal,
it was common practice to connect the commercial
AC supplies to a ground rod, and to your water pipes
in order to improve the grounding.

These days, with PVC pipes being used for water distribution instead of metal (iron or copper) the
necessity of grounding to the water system may
be questionable.

However, all metal enclosures containing AC powered
apparatus should have their metal cabinet shells and bases connected to earth ground for electrical shock hazard protection. This wiring is usually performed
using a green wire, or a bare copper wire.

See the Electric Code for your locality to find more
information on this subject.

Answer 10

You have to be Earthed as a safety precaution. It is a safe path for fault current to pass in the event of a fault.
The main earth starts at the head. a 16mm cable to the fuseboard, or earthblock. From there a 10mm cable connects to the water and gas pipes, within 600mm from the main tap or gas metre. Plastic pipes should be done where they change to metal.