Earth Bars are the common point to group together your Earth continuity and equipotential bonding conductors to create a connection to the external earthing system. Earth bars are typically located in a building’s control room and act as the switchboard for your structure’s equipotential bonding system. In other words, where it all comes together! In most cases, a standard Earth Bar will meet your need, however, should you find that your project requires something a little more customized, our engineers will design and manufacture the earth bar to meet your exact needs. In our discussion below, we’ll highlight the important features to keep in mind when selecting your standard or customized earth bar. What Are You Connecting to the Earth Bar? There are a number of ways and fixings. In addition to knowing how many ways or terminations you require; First, and foremost, you want to know what size conductors or earth lugs you will be connecting to the earth bar. Knowing which conductor size or terminal lug you’re attaching will ensure that you select an earth bar with adequate spacing between your terminals and proper size fittings to create a safe connection. Earth Bars and Conductors we manufacture our standard Earth Bars with M10 brass fixings and 35mm spacing, allowing up to two 185mm2 cable lugs to be connected side by side to each other. If your project requires larger sized cable lugs, then you need to look at increasing the spacing between your fixings. For Earth bars that require handling of multiple cable lugs larger than 185 mm2 (two 300mm2 lugs for example), we recommend you opt for 50mm spacing between fixings. Additionally, while M10 size brass fixings are included in standard orders and accepted under the British Standard 7430, we also offer phosphor bronze and stainless-steel fixings in various sizes to meet your projects specific requirements. Lastly, when looking at your earth bar connections, there is one more consideration to keep in mind. An often-overlooked detail is whether your cable lugs have single or multiple holes in the palm. A standard earth bar will accommodate a one-hole palm, but if needed, we can manufacture your earth bar with parallel fixings to accommodate two-hole palms. As Earth Bars are the common point for all internal and external connections, we want to make sure that everything is well equipped and installed properly. Do You Require a Disconnecting Link for Testing the System? The next thing you want to figure out is if you want to have any disconnecting links, or “test links” in your earth bar. A disconnecting link allows you to test the connection between your earth bar and your earth rods without having to remove any connections from the bar itself. Earth bars come with one (single), or two (double), disconnecting links. A disconnecting link allows a temporary break from the Earth Bar’s connection to Earth to inspect and test the terminal connections in isolation of the earthing and/or lightning protection system.
