Separate earth stake

You're asking in EXACTLY the right place - if this is the Official Forum for Qualified Electricians for YOUR Country and one of the lads knows absolutely ALL the details of your set-up.

Heavy handed perhaps but you may be playing with your and other people's safety if you act oon advice (however knowledgeable and well meant) that you get here.

If your house earthing really relies on connection to a water pipe - it may be in need of revision as better solutions, of lower impedance, should be available.

This page MAY give you some indication of dangers but it is not definitive and you may misunderstood where your situation fits in.

Even the rules around the 'stake' , surrounding material and depth to which it needs be buried are complex. Much of what you would need to do in order to be safe would veer outside the Forum Rules as we value the lives of our customers.

It would APPEAR your earth is local and not PME.

I don't know what I'm talking about.

Your best course of action would be to find a helpful local and fully qualified electrician and have him/her look at what you are trying to achieve.

Mario, in short, best to speak with an accredited electrician who is certified to conductor electrical installations wherever you live.  I'm no expert but I'd suppose that having as a good an earth as possible is better than not, for all kinds of reasons not necessarily, but not excluding, that of sound quality.

Adam, that is loud and clear, I will ask elsewhere, (qualified electrician) but God knows I have asked many and am none the wiser. They all seem to say, well it's just an earth, but why have two? Guess I will just have to find more of these qualified people that can't give me a definitive answer on safety. I'm in Australia NSW if any on knows someone qualified and knowledgable enough to ask please pass on their details..

Thanks,

Mario.

Any accredited electrician would tell you same, namely there is absolutely no difference between any of the approved ways and all you need is some good 1.5 mm2 T&E cable from the local store

try to find one who understands the mains requirements of good hifi performance. this can be hard, but ask around...

enjoy

ken

Perhaps a good starting point would be to contact the Naim Importer for your area.

They may have some experience and greater local knowledge.

Mario, I think may you'll find that the water pipes are being earthed not providing the earth. In the UK I would say that your proposed scheme would be a bad idea, offer poor performance and potential dangerous too. If in doubt get an electrician as you could be making a very major error.

Given it only took seven days to create the first one, asking for a second doesn't seem so unreasonable...!

G

In the uk it makes a positive difference but it has to be carefully implimented as dual earth paths can be potentially dangerous under certain fault conditions.

Mario, as others have said if you ahave PME you must not use a local earth stake as part of the earth system.. As a fault on your supply or substation could cause a fire in your house as well as risk of death through electrocution... Unlikely but quite possible. Also you might find your noise on your earth actually increases..

I converted my house from PME  TN-C-S system to a TT system with local ground electrodes which conformed to UK standards. I paid for the services of a qualified electrician to do this.. And yes my hifi did sound better... 

Simon

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthing_system

Thank you all for responding to my question. The reassuring thing is that safety has been the main concern from all of you. I will get an electrican to install a dedicated circuit wired in the conventional way for Australia (and upgrade the earthing to the water pipe thing) to get the best out of my active NBL's. I'm sure that alone without the separate earth will sound great, the old wiring is over 25 years old.

Regards

Mario.

Mario, if you live in a very dry part of Australia then a separate earthing rod may not be very effective - they work best in moist ground.  It sounds like you've made the right decision.  Just upgrading old wiring, socketry and consumer unit, and optimising the circuit for the hifi with a dedicated CU and spur should bring worthwhile benefits.

Simon,

Is it understood why an earthing rod makes a difference compared to a separate dedicated spur that uses the same earthing arrangements?

Just curious.  I have the latter but not really the motivation to do the former.

Graham, they are two seperate solutions mitigating different issues. This is how I describe it..

A dedicated spur will reduce electrical noise from appliances on your other mains circuits within your house. This is done by creating a higher impedance path to the other mains loads in the house compared to the impedance to the consumer board.

Installing a TT earth system and removing PME decouples the combined neutral and  earth from your electricity supply from the safety earth in your house and creates a local earth. This helps remove electrical RF noise flowing in the earth from other households and loads outside your house but connected on your substation/transformer from flowing into your own house earthing system. This can help reduce the electrical RF noise of connected equipment that is earthed.

I actually installed the TT system for other reasons other than hifi where it was important to have very low electrical noise, and had severeal specialist devices to do with radio that had  thier own electrode earthing requirements. I noticed as a bonus my hifi audio improved.

Simon

Mario, I'm going to do the same. I asked the same question the other day but the thread got shut down really fast as its an audio forum. A good friend of mine said outside of going to 555 the biggest upgrade was a separate Earth spike set up.

NZ and AUS have similar regulation when it comes to house wiring. So here's what I'm going to do after looking at the rules for New Zealand.  For me I can use 50mm wire earthing cable to a new  separate copper earth spike not water piping. To connect to water piping is no longer legally for both of our country's. This earth cable is directional 0 m mark should be at the earth spike and "X" mark at the fuse board. While the  Old  ceramic fuses sound better they are no longer allowed to used. When installing your new wiring you must use the more modern switch type.  You also must use a switched wall socket. I was looking at hard wiring the Boxes into the wall but on second thoughts this would be highly illegal.  At the end of the day you're obligated to use a qualified electrician and he will know the rules, also be wise about insurance if you were to have an  electrical issue with your house and the Insurance company finds out that something has been wired illegally pretty much bet you won't get insurance not to mention the possible loss of life it's just not worth the sonic benefits.

 I've just taken a photo of an A4 piece of paper wiring instructions that was supplied to me by the naim dealer here in New Zealand, I'll have a look and see if I can find your email and I'll email it through to you....just had a look  don't think I have clearance to get your email.

 This post is simply a explanation of what I'm going to do in my house in my country. A qualified electrician will be doing the work under the guidance of the New Zealand safety rules.  From what I understand the electrical set up/systems in the UK differ from New Zealand and Australia a great deal. 

Here we go. This  information is for Mario only and not for use in by anybody else in any other country.

Do not attempt this work if you do not know what you are doing use an  qualified electrician and get him to follow the instructions carefully. 

To be fair to the mods and Naim, it's not because it's 'off-topic' (this being an audio forum), it's because if people use this forum to get (unqualified) electrical wiring advice . . . when they electrocute themselves and/or family members, the house burns down, sensitive electronic equipment is ruined, the local authorities issue fines for out-of-code modifications, etc etc, . . . "I learnt it on the Naim forum" is not something they want to hear. 

 Totally agree. Sorry if I've over stepped. 

Indeed, if the term PME  means nothing to you, and you cannot absolutely confirm you are not PME then attaching a local ground electrode without the separating the combined neutral earth that feeds your house from the utility company is the dangerous part. Irrespective of regulations if you do this incorrectly and you are PME, then a fault, or damaged cable could result in your your neighbourhood's neutral current possibly passing through your supply into your earth electrodes.Faults are more likely if you have overhead feeds. I am reliably told if this occurs your house wiring to the earth electrode would typically vaporise and you would be very lucky if a fire doesn't break out. Connected appliances may well be damaged too.

Simon

I'm letting this thread stand for the moment but have moved it to the Padded Cell.  I think Mario has all he needs here and that the over-riding advice as top the next step is to talk to an experienced, qualified electrician who is certified for electrical installations where you live.  

Naim's position on this is as so eloquently put by Bart and well worth repeating;

...if people use this forum to get (unqualified) electrical wiring advice . . . when they electrocute themselves and/or family members, the house burns down, sensitive electronic equipment is ruined, the local authorities issue fines for out-of-code modifications, etc etc, . . . "I learnt it on the Naim forum" is not something they want to hear. 

Another consideration Richard is that legislation changes. 

If someone says "in country C, you need to do XYZ", that may well be true today, but someone searching the forum (shock!  horror!  someone actually searching?!?) 2-3 years from now may find that due to rule changes the advice is no longer accurate.

Graham

Is now the time to talk about spot welding nails as replacements to fuses? 

(JOKING!  Don't ever ever do this!)

Very true Graham.

As for "spot welding nails" - no, let's no go there....

Another consideration is that regulations vary around Europe & I don't think anyone on the forum is expert enough to advise on Italian regulations. The OP really should seek professional advise in Italy & if the advise is its just "another earth" that tells me the person is not professional & I wouod walk away

In UK alone there are five earthing types listed in BS 7671 Wiring Regulations:

The three systems that are current in the UK are:

1. TN–S
2. TN–C–S (PME)
3. TT. (because TT systems are not directly earthed & require a separate correctly installed ground earth plate/spike,  they are no longer approved for low voltage public supply in the UK).

Mike, Mario is in NSW, Australia.  

Still, I think we've exhausted this one so I'm going to close it, lest things begin to get confused.