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Conduit requirements and cable type

Former Community Member over 4 years ago

I’m in the process of installing seven hard wired fire alarms into our property all of which have to be interlinked.

I intend to re use a now empty steel conduit that runs from right beside our consumer unit up into the loft space. The steel conduit at its point of entry into the loft terminates there presumably the rest was removed in the past. I want to run a cable from there which will have to do an up and over brickwork in the loft.

My first question, is it acceptable in compliance with electrical regulations to simply clip the cable to the brick at the mortar joints or do I have to or even if strictly not necessary should I, put the cable in PVC conduit? This area is not trafficked.

Once I have crossed the brick work and come down to the first alarm, from there I intend to run a cable down the near center of the loft adjacent to the walkway in pvc conduit parallel to the 2 existing lighting circuit conduits located above the joists. I am not going to drill through the joists. At points along the conduit there will be junctions to allow clipped cable not in conduit to be ran parallel to the joists to the relevant alarm. The conduit is going to be a straight run, so my question is having consulted a few sources that state 1.5mm flexible cable not twin and earth must be used in conduit, does it? I understand the reason for flexible cable in conduit with a lot of turns and junctions but this is a straight run.

Thanks

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0 Former Community Member over 4 years ago

I took another look and there is definitely no bonding at all on the incoming gas supply which is old fashioned low carbon steel covered in paint. A communal supply pipe enters the building and runs up the wall in the hallway branching off on each floor to the relevant flat. The visible pipe where it emerges from the ground floor all the way up to our meter has no bonding anywhere. I do not know if there is bonding below the ground floor subfloor - guess I'll be taking a look tomorrow.

As for the output side of our meter, the gas copper pipe has been propped up on timber along the joists. All other electrical supplies are in old steel conduit so there is no chance of any of those supplies coming into contact with the gas pipe. There is however a 10mm earth cable that originates from the same cavity that the gas pipe runs down, into the boiler. I'm going to have to check that this end of that cable is actually connected to something near the boiler because the opposite end of that 10mm earth runs parallel to the gas pipe back to the gas meter but terminates in an earth block in the attic which itself is not connected to anything.

If running an earth in the same conduit is not against regulations then I'll utilize the earth block and connect an earth cable to it, run this back down the conduit next to the consumer unit and MET and get it connected up.
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0 Former Community Member over 4 years ago

I took another look and there is definitely no bonding at all on the incoming gas supply which is old fashioned low carbon steel covered in paint. A communal supply pipe enters the building and runs up the wall in the hallway branching off on each floor to the relevant flat. The visible pipe where it emerges from the ground floor all the way up to our meter has no bonding anywhere. I do not know if there is bonding below the ground floor subfloor - guess I'll be taking a look tomorrow.

As for the output side of our meter, the gas copper pipe has been propped up on timber along the joists. All other electrical supplies are in old steel conduit so there is no chance of any of those supplies coming into contact with the gas pipe. There is however a 10mm earth cable that originates from the same cavity that the gas pipe runs down, into the boiler. I'm going to have to check that this end of that cable is actually connected to something near the boiler because the opposite end of that 10mm earth runs parallel to the gas pipe back to the gas meter but terminates in an earth block in the attic which itself is not connected to anything.

If running an earth in the same conduit is not against regulations then I'll utilize the earth block and connect an earth cable to it, run this back down the conduit next to the consumer unit and MET and get it connected up.
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Conduit requirements and cable type

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