AusLee
Electrical
- Sep 22, 2004
- 259
Hi,
An Electrical contractor is installing wiring inside the apartments in a multi-dwelling apartments building block. The job is in Australia, based on AS 3000.
He is not using the boxes in the wall. He is just running the cable from the unit/apartment distribution board to the power outlet and will terminate directly in the outlet.
An independent inspector came to inspect and said that he is concerned if a cable is loose from the outlet behind the wall, and the active conductor in that loose cable comes in touch with the steel studs supporting the gyprock wall, that steel stud will become energised and will cause an electrocution hazard.
The Electrical contractor states that each circuit breaker in the distribution board is equipped with a residual current device/ground fault circuit interrupt.
The inspector is still not happy, he said the Electrical contractor needs to demonstrate that the steel studs are actually earthed.
Each steel stud is fixed to the ground with 2 screws.
Can you please provide some information/standard/link to a website/ which shows how can we test the earthing continuity of the structure? Do we get a normal ohm meter and connect it between each stud and the next? and what should be a good reading? Obviously concrete is not copper so I'm not expecting zero resistance but what is a good value?
An Electrical contractor is installing wiring inside the apartments in a multi-dwelling apartments building block. The job is in Australia, based on AS 3000.
He is not using the boxes in the wall. He is just running the cable from the unit/apartment distribution board to the power outlet and will terminate directly in the outlet.
An independent inspector came to inspect and said that he is concerned if a cable is loose from the outlet behind the wall, and the active conductor in that loose cable comes in touch with the steel studs supporting the gyprock wall, that steel stud will become energised and will cause an electrocution hazard.
The Electrical contractor states that each circuit breaker in the distribution board is equipped with a residual current device/ground fault circuit interrupt.
The inspector is still not happy, he said the Electrical contractor needs to demonstrate that the steel studs are actually earthed.
Each steel stud is fixed to the ground with 2 screws.
Can you please provide some information/standard/link to a website/ which shows how can we test the earthing continuity of the structure? Do we get a normal ohm meter and connect it between each stud and the next? and what should be a good reading? Obviously concrete is not copper so I'm not expecting zero resistance but what is a good value?