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Earthing arrangement

05ballard

I have visited a site to Inspect someone else’s ecir and one of the defects is that there is no earth supplied. 
 

The site has about 200 ish sheds that are currently fed off 25mm swa radials then reduced to 6mm swa to each shed but there is no earth through any of the swa now the other elec has gone and said that due to this all would need to pulled up and pulled up. The cable it’s supplied in you can’t earyj the sheath due to only having one copper Center and the sheath as the neutral. Each shed does have a earth stake but all are in bad condition or missing completely. Each shed is privately owned so my argument is that the site is suppling them with a live and neutral and it’s down to the shed owner to supply a earth and 100ma rcd protection am I correct? 

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    If it's straight concentric, then the outer should really be a PEN rather than just N. If it is then it might not be quite so bad - a PEN qualifies as an earthed Protective Conductor and isn't (by convention) classified as a live conductor so is suitable for direct burial. BS 7671 doesn't have any blanket ban on PEN conductors - although does impose a few conditions (see 543.4). Since the demise of the old Supply Regs I'm not aware of any requirement to obtain authorization from anyone (in the UK at least) and while the current Electricity Safety Quality and Continuity Regulations prohibit the use of PENs in consumer's installations, that prohibition would not seem to apply installations operated by some third party who isn't a consumer - e.g. a BNO or perhaps landowner providing a separate supply to tenants.

    It sounds like the system might be deficient on a few details - e.g. the 6mm² branches probably wouldn't meet the BS 7671 requirement for PEN conductors to be min 10mm² Copper (or 16mm² aluminium)  - but that might be more a matter of a technical non-compliance than posing an immediate danger (depending on the circumstances).

    Of course there are lots of details that might trip things up - e.g. if the “PEN” is fed through some means of switching or isolation (or even worse a fuse) rather than being solidly connected all the way back to the supply, but the situation might not be quite as bad as it has been painted.

       - Andy.

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  • 0

    If it's straight concentric, then the outer should really be a PEN rather than just N. If it is then it might not be quite so bad - a PEN qualifies as an earthed Protective Conductor and isn't (by convention) classified as a live conductor so is suitable for direct burial. BS 7671 doesn't have any blanket ban on PEN conductors - although does impose a few conditions (see 543.4). Since the demise of the old Supply Regs I'm not aware of any requirement to obtain authorization from anyone (in the UK at least) and while the current Electricity Safety Quality and Continuity Regulations prohibit the use of PENs in consumer's installations, that prohibition would not seem to apply installations operated by some third party who isn't a consumer - e.g. a BNO or perhaps landowner providing a separate supply to tenants.

    It sounds like the system might be deficient on a few details - e.g. the 6mm² branches probably wouldn't meet the BS 7671 requirement for PEN conductors to be min 10mm² Copper (or 16mm² aluminium)  - but that might be more a matter of a technical non-compliance than posing an immediate danger (depending on the circumstances).

    Of course there are lots of details that might trip things up - e.g. if the “PEN” is fed through some means of switching or isolation (or even worse a fuse) rather than being solidly connected all the way back to the supply, but the situation might not be quite as bad as it has been painted.

       - Andy.

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