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Gems of the Trade

1M views 14K replies 295 participants last post by  backstay 
How, did the home owner do this live?

Tim
If you want it bad enough, there’s always a way. A stolen hot stick to pull a cut-out, or a homemade one made from glued up plastic drain pipe with a screw in the side. Tweakers who are running themselves dimed out across the board will find a way or die trying.
 
An elderly lady asked me to look at this. Wanted to know if it was unsafe, lol.
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With a little work that could be automated. When the door goes up, a tab swipes the switch up and turns the lights on, door down, swipes it down and lights off. Someone just didn’t finish the job, lol.
 
Well maybe if they cross list it for in there...

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In seriousness this is a small sampling of the death electrical I’m working through at my new job. I have 5 plants now and I’m sure I will be able to retire before I ever get finished. I’m certain Ol’Sparky in the death house in Lucasville is safer than some of the things I’m working through.
 
It's code compliant if you put a bonding bushing on the inside threads of the connector and bond it to the condulet using a tapped hole and ground screw or spice it into an EGC in the race way. You can even use one of the laboratory listed versions of the Insulating Displacing Connectors (IDC) that another poster had a photograph of.

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Tom Horne
Yeah, I’m not so sure about that. The cover is that, a cover. If that was a thing, you would be able to buy it from the factory with a KO in it.
 
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Be careful what you wish for dude.

314.22 Surface Extensions. Surface extensions shall be made by mounting and mechanically securing an extension ring over the box. Equipment grounding shall be in accordance with Part VI of Article 250.
Exception: A surface extension shall be permitted to be made from the cover of a box where the cover is designed so it is unlikely to fall off or be removed if its securing means becomes loose. The wiring method shall be flexible or an approved length that permits removal of the cover and provides access to the box interior and shall be arranged so that any grounding continuity is independent of the connection between the box and cover.

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Tom Horne
Is that actually a cover with a KO, or one of those fits all combination condulets that you can misuse?
 
I don't know what you mean when you say "fits all combination condulets that you can misuse?" It's a listed device. Like every other piece of materiel or equipment in the electrical industry it can be abused. The code section I quoted applies to it just as it applies to a box cover for 4 inch square or octagonal boxes that are made with a knockout already prepunched in the cover. Electrically there is no difference between the two if the code provision is obeyed.

I doesn't make the nicest looking installation that I've ever seen but that doesn't make it a violation of the US National Electric Code. If you installed one in a hazardous classified area it would be a violation unless the condulet was listed for that use and the wiring method for which that would be the origin were also classified. As an example Liquidtight flexible Metallic Conduit (LFMC) is suitable for use in Some classified locations. Extending LFMC from a condulet cover cover would be an acceptable practice in that situation. A table top brake disk turning lathe might be supplied by a raceway, which is less than 18 inches from the floor, using LFMC to avoid transmitting the machines vibration to the conduit.

Would a different material and/or installation be more elegant? Perhaps but that is not the question. Is it permissible. I believe that it is. Any position based on the premise that it would inevitably lead to some other violation is specious. A court would call that "Assuming facts not in evidence."

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Tom Horne
I suppose we are arguing semantics at this point. You reference a fits-all as I call them, universal condulet body with interchangeable sides, listed as such to use as many sides as you want as long as you don't exceed the cubic fill capacity you are fine.

I'm talking about a run of the mill, OZ Gedney or Appleton LB with a cover that someone knocks a KO in. I highly doubt that a listed single purpose condulet body cover exists with a KO.
 
I'm not following what you have written on this topic. That surprises me because the other things that you have written in the forum have been clear and easy to follow regardless of whether I fully agreed with you or not. I'm not trying to be provocative or needlessly quarrelsome. I'm only asking you on what you are basing your objection to that installation. If you believe that it is a violation of the US National Electric Code which was adopted by reference as law by the jurisdiction and at the time the work was done please say so. If you believe it is poor practice you will get no argument from me because I think that it is ugly and that it's mother dressed it funny. That it is not best practice goes without saying but I felt that I should say it anyway less someone bring up that distraction in the discussion.

Do you know of some code provision which forbids punching or drilling a knock out sized hole into a condulet cover. If there is no such prohibition then the code section I quoted earlier would still apply. Certainly that is done literally all the time on so many electrical enclosures that I can call it a usual and customary practice.

Remember that I do not call it good practice nor did I say it is an elegant way to accomplish the installation of a surface extension using cable. I only observed that the installation appeared to be code compliant. "The Maxim of the law is that silence is consent." That legal axiom covers many things one of which is "That on which the law is silent is lawful." If the listed instructions and/or instructions given on the labeling of the device on which the recognized testing laboratory mark appears do not forbid a usual and customary modification of a piece of material then it may be done. Any instructions, prohibitions, or restrictions on use that do not appear in one of those 2 places is not enforceable by a government AHJ.

Please folks, do not bring up the usual warranty boilerplate because it means only what it says and may not be applied by any government agent. Two different State High Courts have ruled the enforcement of warranty language by anyone exercising the police power of the state is inherently arbitrary and capricious because it is strictly a civil matter addressable only in a court of equity which is the formal historic name for the civil division of a State's courts.

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Tom Horne
Well you make a good point, about the permissive aspect of the NEC. My thought was/is if the maker listed the condulet body with a KO cover, they would sell them. The fits-all condulet bodies don't really have "covers" so much as they are interchangeable panels. I know in years past that Crouse-Hinds had all manner of porcelain condulet covers that had holes for drop cords and Edison base lamps. I suppose I was/am basing my objection to a field made hole in a cover that a factory cover may or may not exist.

I don't think you are being argumentative, it's exceedingly hard to convey tone and language nuance through a internet text forum, I try hard though.

On an unrelated note, I would hazard a guess that a phone or vis a vis conversation with some of you would be a difficult proposition as the text filters out my heavy [so I've been told] Appalachian accent and phraseology.
 
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