Why is it that a unit in a complex may not have a TN-CS supply between the stubby and the unit's DB, but a free standing house may ?
Why is it that a unit in a complex may not have a TN-CS supply between the stubby and the unit's DB, but a free standing house may ?
Following on my previous post, the situation is as follows:
Unit in a townhouse complex has a high earth loop impedance.
Stubby / kiosk is 30m away on other side of road.
Tests done at stubby indicate that the fault is between the stubby and the unit.
Now one could bridge the neutral and earth at the prepaid meter which is situated next to the unit's DB
which will result in the earth loop impedance being fine, however, this goes against
7.16.4.2
From the point of supply to each user or part of a communal installation, the neutral and earth conductors shall be separate conductors.
The Municipality says it's ok to do a neutral/earth bridge at the meter, so that paving need not be lifted and the road need not be trenched across to replace the cable.
Who trumps ? SANS 10142 or Municipality ?
7
If it is all municipal cables up to the meter then it is there problem and it would fall outside of the code and be part of there network.
Problem with just bridging could mean that there is not a good earth or bad neutral - In my opinion better to fix correctly as the fault could just become worse and burn through the live
Derlyn (16-Sep-23)
How old is the complex?
Hereby us, a number of the old houses have a 2core cable coming into the house and we had to bridge the neutral and earth to each other to get the houses compliant. Others have no earth connected to the network so we do the same to them.
The only problem now is that if the neutral fall away from the network the earth becomes alive! That is not good!
If there was a working earth in the first place, not working now, I would agree with GCE, get it fixed.
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