Bonding of Water Pipe

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Please excuse my ignorance but I have just had a EICR carried out and I have no bonding to the water, the stop tap is a long way from the DB and a nightmare to get there. The pipe coming into the house is lead so requires grounding but I have been told that I could put a length of plastic pipe after the stop tap and the copper pipe and that this might bond it but it would require checking to confirm once installed. Is it possible that this would work as it would be much less problematic than trying to get an earth to the DB but it sounds too easy of a fix?
 
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Please excuse my ignorance but I have just had a EICR carried out and I have no bonding to the water, the stop tap is a long way from the DB and a nightmare to get there.
The stop tap is irrelevant.
If required the bonding conductor must be connected "as near as practicable to the point of entry" to the premises of the pipe (although this is likely to be where the tap is).
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The pipe coming into the house is lead so requires grounding but I have been told that I could put a length of plastic pipe after the stop tap
No - before the stop tap so that you cannot touch any of the pipe which goes outside or underground - assuming none of the internal pipe goes underground again.

This might be difficult if the pipe enters from the kitchen floor, for example.

and the copper pipe and that this might bond it but it would require checking to confirm once installed.
It would not bond it; it would remove the need for bonding - joining electrically.

Is it possible that this would work as it would be much less problematic than trying to get an earth to the DB but it sounds too easy of a fix?
Yes, about a metre of plastic pipe should do it.
 
Do you have gas? If so where is the gas pipe entry and bond?

Would it be easier to run a bonding cable from the water entry point to the gas bonding cable and connect them together?
 
If you have lead pipe forget the bonding issue and get plastic run from the water meter / mains connection to the entry point... sort out the,in my opinion, the more serious issue of drinking lead contaminated water and then the bonding issue will be solved as a bonus.
 
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Yep
Do you really think that?
oh yep... having been a victim of it ... 1900's house with 25m of lead pipe..fatigue and muscle pain. Pipe replaced symptoms reduced after 4 months and disappeared after 18 months on all 4 adults living with us, on testing the supply, which is cheap @ £30 from your water company had a level of .084mg/l or toxic level as its known.
 
Well thank you for the replies removing lead lead pipe is not an option as we would have to dig a pavement up that has drains in so a none starter. Gas pipe needs to be bonded also but unfortunately the gas and water could not be further apart one at front of house on left the other at the rear on the right.
 
Yep

oh yep... having been a victim of it ... 1900's house with 25m of lead pipe..fatigue and muscle pain. Pipe replaced symptoms reduced after 4 months and disappeared after 18 months on all 4 adults living with us, on testing the supply, which is cheap @ £30 from your water company had a level of .084mg/l or toxic level as its known.
If you let the water run before drinking it won't make much difference. A lot of the supply network is still in lead.
 
oh yep... having been a victim of it ... 1900's house with 25m of lead pipe..fatigue and muscle pain. Pipe replaced symptoms reduced after 4 months and disappeared after 18 months on all 4 adults living with us,
Experiences vary. Like countless other people in my generation, I spent most of the first 25 years of my life living in a house which was entirely plumbed in lead (including a long run into the house), and neither I nor anyone else living in the house was aware of any symptoms as a result - and, some 50 years later, I still seem to be going, with no more fatigue and muscle aches/pains (or other symptoms) than i can blame on the ageing process :)

That house still had it's all-lead plumbing when it was eventually sold in 1987, and that may possibly still be the case today.
 
Yep, for years and years lead piping was the norm, nowadays if copper pipe it should not have lead solder on the joints. We go from one extreme to the other. I am not saying that lead piping on drinking water is not a bad idea but just asking about the realities %age wise of ill health.
Of course there will massive variations in results of contaminations and results of ill heath even on like minded systems so I suspect that the bar is now set quite low on what is allowed.
 
You'll only likely get significant level of lead if you don't run the water before drinking it.
It tends to only be notable if the water has been stagnant in the pipes for a significant period e.g. holiday homes where nobody is therefore for weeks in end. But even in these cases, flushing though should be fine.
 
You'll only likely get significant level of lead if you don't run the water before drinking it.
It tends to only be notable if the water has been stagnant in the pipes for a significant period e.g. holiday homes where nobody is therefore for weeks in end. But even in these cases, flushing though should be fine.
As from personal experience that's just not true... its the condition of the lead pipe that was the issue with we six contraction / expansion bulges in the pipe when it were dug up. The lead was mechanically flaking off, gathering at the restriction, stop tap, bends the slowly leching into the water supply, When you test the water its done after a 20 minute flush. The issue of solubility of standing water can be fixed by a run through but if the pipe is flaking they just carry on flaking as the water runs through...
 
Yep, for years and years lead piping was the norm, nowadays if copper pipe it should not have lead solder on the joints. We go from one extreme to the other. I am not saying that lead piping on drinking water is not a bad idea but just asking about the realities %age wise of ill health.
Quite so
 
As from personal experience that's just not true... its the condition of the lead pipe that was the issue with we six contraction / expansion bulges in the pipe when it were dug up. The lead was mechanically flaking off, gathering at the restriction, stop tap, bends the slowly leching into the water supply, When you test the water its done after a 20 minute flush. The issue of solubility of standing water can be fixed by a run through but if the pipe is flaking they just carry on flaking as the water runs through...
As I wrote, experiences obviously vary.

I certainly did not experience any 'improvements in health' when I moved away from having been drinking water through lead pipes for nearly 25 years - and those pipes had probably been in service for around 80 years at the time, and I very much doubt that we ever bothered to 'run the water' before drinking it in the mornings.
 

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