Earth bonding to Gas meter

Your incoming gas and water supplies should be earth bonded regardless of whether you have an EV Charger circuit.

not sure exactly - I had a new gas meter fitted with a smart meter type connection by OVO energy about 6 or 7 years ago and I cannot see anywhere that they have earth bonded after they fitted the new meter ?

adeace said:

So just trying understand the Earth bonding you need in order to have Electric charging point fitted ! Can you do this yourself or does it have to be done by a qualified Electrician.
Im looking at pictures and it looks relatively standard / simple reason is my gas meter is about metre from my electric consumer unit and my electricity outside cabinet is literally the other side of the external wall from the consumer unit ? so rather than have an expensive electrician fit it I would possibly prefer to install it myself, or get a sparky to install fro cash as im sure would only take 5 minutes for them, due to the proximity. Also there is an older Green cable running from the outside cabinet along inside of the cupboard and down to the stop cock in my downstairs toilet (backing onto the cabinet where the Gas meter is installed, however the area where the stop cock is fitted has been tidily enclosed behind the toilet so I cannot actually see the earth bonding lead actual location which OVO energy are asking for a picture of for them to give me a price for the fitting of the Electric charge point.
My install would I believe be about as easy an installation as you could get due to the relative proximity of all elements, but im struggling to get the images necessary for OVO to give me a price for the EV charge point. Looking to probably get the ohme home pro charger - or would people suggest arranging this privately from a specialist company other than OVO ?

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Just get a qualified, certified professional electrician to do the work, it’s cheaper and safer in the long run.

just noticed that on the ohme home pro I am getting fitted it says something about it not needing an earthing spike is this different to needing an earth bond ?

adeace said:

just noticed that on the ohme home pro I am getting fitted it says something about it not needing an earthing spike is this different to needing an earth bond ?

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Yes its different to bonding, I am having the same one fitted by Octopus next month and they have not asked for photos of this, I am not sure if have bonding on the gas pipe will have a look at the weekend. I would just say you can not see any as would think if needed they would do it as part of the installation and it’s in the area where will have to run wiring. It maybe bonded but you can not see it but on tested will find this out.
I can not see the bonding in our house but I know there is bonding as we have to have the electric board checked every so often as we are housing association and the tester as me where it was and I do not know where it is but he said it has it but cold tell ne it’s a long way from the fuse box.

Jto said:

Yes its different to bonding, I am having the same one fitted by Octopus next month and they have not asked for photos of this, I am not sure if have bonding on the gas pipe will have a look at the weekend. I would just say you can not see any as would think if needed they would do it as part of the installation and it’s in the area where will have to run wiring. It maybe bonded but you can not see it but on tested will find this out.
I can not see the bonding in our house but I know there is bonding as we have to have the electric board checked every so often as we are housing association and the tester as me where it was and I do not know where it is but he said it has it but cold tell ne it’s a long way from the fuse box.

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cheers Jto - yeah will see what OVO say as they are my current supplier anyway and as they did originally fit the smart meter hopefully if needed they can reinstate the Earth bonding.

As @Alb stated. You should have earth Bonding regardless of EV. Do not accept that as the meter was installed by xxxx it is correct. We recently had all new gas pipes fitted to the house. Friends house they hid the earth Bonding from the meter behind the actual gas meter

Octopus have fitted yesterday an Ohme Home Pro. The fitter does a stress test with all high draw items on like the oven etc to see if you will exceed the main fuse from the DNO.

He also had to see and take photos of the earth bonding.

I recently had a Hypervolt Pro 3 fitted, but first I asked an electrician friend if he could do it, he said that by the time he’d bought the unit, fitted it then had it signed off by someone with the appropriate certification it would be better to let Octopus fit it (our supplier)
The Octopus guy was here for 3.5 hours fitting the charger, he was under the sink and allsorts. When installed he also did quite a few tests with what looked like a dedicated tester which plugged directly into charger with the type 2 connector.
My suggestion would be to get it done by a pro unless you really know what you're doing.
Hope this helps and good luck.

Grith said:

I recently had a Hypervolt Pro 3 fitted, but first I asked an electrician friend if he could do it, he said that by the time he’d bought the unit, fitted it then had it signed off by someone with the appropriate certification it would be better to let Octopus fit it (our supplier)
The Octopus guy was here for 3.5 hours fitting the charger, he was under the sink and allsorts. When installed he also did quite a few tests with what looked like a dedicated tester which plugged directly into charger with the type 2 connector.
My suggestion would be to get it done by a pro unless you really know what you're doing.
Hope this helps and good luck.

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The DNO needs informing to check your supply is up to the job (can the transformer cope too) including if you are looped.

Had ohme Charger fitted & we "dont" have earthing at gas meter

I had 'smart' meters installed by Octopus recently. They renewed the earth bonding for our gas supply at the same time. Shortly after I had a Hypervolt 3 Pro installed by a local contractor recommended by my MG Dealer. It was done within 72 hours of getting the estimate & only took a couple of hours to complete, total cost was £960 (inc VAT) including installing a separate consumer unit and running an ethernet cable to my network switch.

gazza487 said:

The DNO needs informing to check your supply is up to the job (can the transformer cope too) including if you are looped.

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Octopus contact the DNO to check this if you have not, I had booked them to come and fit one in March but as live in a semi attached house I checked with the DNO that I was not the end house on a loop system and they did a question sheet over the phone at the same time to check that the main fuse was ok for a EV charger and sent the results to me to give to octopus.

iqon said:

Had ohme Charger fitted & we "dont" have earthing at gas meter

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As @Alb has previously said, the gas line leaving your meter should be bonded / earthed to ground regardless if you have a EV wall box or not.
When we had our wall box installed way back in 2016 the installer did carry out a pre-check inspection of our electrical set up prior.
He found that the original main bonding single core cable was undersized and required an upgrade, plus the main copper gas supply pipe from the meter to the gas boiler, had never been earthed / bonded when it was installed.
The boiler in our integral garage, was about 15 feet away from the consumer unit and incoming main DNO cut out fuse.
The electrician told me that he would need the bonding work rectifying, as he has to declare the correct bonding status and then declare the values on the paperwork he submits.
The extra work for the bonding / earthing carried out added another £60 to the bill for the wall box install.
He also ungraded the size of the incoming water supply pipe in the garage at the same time.
The gas meter is on the opposite side of the house.
The supply pipe travels from the meter box, up the outside of the house, then though the brick work, right across the attic space, then back down to the garage !.
The bonding of the copper gas pipe should, ideally be done close to the gas meter itself, but it should be bonded somewhere along its length that is for sure !.

JohnV6 said:

Octopus have fitted yesterday an Ohme Home Pro. The fitter does a stress test with all high draw items on like the oven etc to see if you will exceed the main fuse from the DNO.

He also had to see and take photos of the earth bonding.

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The fitter should have included a clip on sensor that monitors the current demand on the incoming mains supply and modulates the amount of charge being delivered by your Ohme. This ensures that your car won't cause an overload when there's a heavy demand from elsewhere in your premises.

My gas meater is bonded as it’s only 8 inches from where the power cable comes in ,
My DNO. Had to refix meter board as well and behind that was a 1930 Portsmouth corporation electric pay book , house is 1929
My Walbox was installed

I had a zappi fitted by Octopus in November. I had to send photos of the meter and where I wanted the charger fitted in first, then octopus said I was on a looped system and needed to get unlooped. They informed the DNO, who then contacted me and got me to send more photos. They came out to have a look and said the looping wasn’t an issue, unless next door wanted a charger too, but I needed my cut out replacing as it was only 60A, so they did that. All this so far free of charge and took about 2 weeks. I told octopus the work was done, got booked in for installation the following week. When the installers came they couldn’t find the end of the earth cable running from my meter. The earth rod was sticking up out of the floor of the porch, but the cable was nowhere in sight. Whoever built my porch in the distant past had buried the cable and the connector in the floor, so I managed to chisel it out, and there it was! I phoned ictopus, told them the cable was sorted and got rebooked for the following week. Pulling my hair out at this point. Anyway, the fitters turned up, installed the charger, a new spur off the meter with a couple of tails because my board was full, did all their tests and gave it all the green light. Took about a month from start to finish and cost £1049 in total. I must admit though, they’ve done a brilliant job fitting it. Since then, I haven’t had any problems at all. Just plug the car in and zappi, intelligent octopus and the car sort it out amongst themselves and the car has a full belly in the morning.

Under no circumstances connect your charger earth to an existing gas , water Earth bond.
You charger needs either a PEN protection device or/and a seperate staked Earth spike near to the charger (and at least 3m away from any other earth, pope or stake or otherwise)
Some chargers such as the Hypervolt have PEN protection built in . Or you can buy seperate PEN protection devices /fuse boxes for the charger.
Always consult an electrician qualified to install EV chargers if you don’t know what you are doing . The earthing method is important for protection. The details why are probably beyond the scope of this thread .