Earth Bonding

Toodles · 2023-04-23T14:36:42Z

Earth Bonding. I have recently had my gas meter removed by Octopus Energy (no more gas standing charges!) as we are now all-electric. When OE took the meter out, they fitted an earth strap across the still existing gas inlet point where it terminates with the valve and the other end was fitted to the gas inlet pipe to the house. I am wondering if I need to keep this bond - OE put the link in to be sure, to be sure. I have the DNO’s earth bond on the electrical feed to the house meter and also a 4 foot stake driven into the ground with heavy gauge strap fitted to the solar PV and Powerwall installation. Is there likely to be any good reason to maintain this old gas pipe earth bond any more please? Regards, Toodles.

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Transparent

(@transparent)

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03/05/2023 7:41 pm

I'm assuming that the 'change' is due to Virgin Media upgrading the network from FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) to FTTH (Fibre to the Home).

Copper phone wires supplying a home do have an earth reference point at the cabinet. That's the 1-metre high box along the street somewhere. But that earth isn't to provide safety for end users if you send mains 240v or a lightning strike down the wires! The copper is too thin to take that sort of current.

The earth reference acts to protect the equipment owned by OpenReach or whoever your supplier is.

Once the cable to the house is upgraded to fibre optic, it can no longer have any earth reference.
Your link now uses photons, not electrons!

Nor can it provide the 80v across the pair of copper wires which produces the 'ring tone'.

So two things have to be changed in the home.

1: Your broadband router gets changed to one with a fibre-optic link to the outside world.

2: Your 'landline phone' needs to receive power from the house electricity supply.

The latter is more complex than it first appears.
The telecomms regulations require that it must be possible to make a call from the house during a power-cut.
So the new phone also has a battery which keeps it 'live'.

None of this has any bearing on the earthing for the house.

If anything, it makes the situation simpler.
In the event of a nearby lightning strike, you no longer have a copper telephone wire connecting into the home.
The only earth which concerns you will therefore be the one associated with the mains electricity supply.

Save energy... recycle electrons!

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Toodles

(@toodles)

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Topic starter 04/05/2023 3:54 pm

@transparent We are awaiting a call back from Virgin on the ridiculous as we have 3 handsets that will need powering (special equipment for hearing impaired user etc.) which in turn entails occupying a 13 amp socket and trailing wires. VM point out they will not work in a power cut so we will be requesting one of their equipments that connect to the hub but provide a connection at all times to cover us for emergencies. They are not aware that we have islanding powering -with apologies, in case anyone is interested, this is the gist of the VM message: Regards, Toodles.

On 21 June your current home phone service will stop working and be switched over to our fibre network. We will send you an adapter in the post which you’ll need to use to connect your home phone to your WiFi Hub so you can make and receive phone calls over our fibre network.

What you need to do

Keep an eye out for the adapter. It'll come with simple step-by-step instructions to help you get it set up. You’ll need to do this on or after 21 June.

Do you have any connected devices?

In the unlikely event there’s a power cut or a fibre network disruption, you won’t be able to make or receive calls and most connected devices (such as a burglar alarm linked to a control centre, a telecare device, or other phones connected to extension sockets) will be affected.
You’ll also need to contact your device provider and let them know about the switch to make sure they’re compatible with a fibre service.

If you rely on your landline for accessibility needs or don’t have a mobile to make an emergency call we’ll provide you with an emergency back up line so you’re always able to call emergency services.