10/3, 8/3 and 6/3 Without Ground Romex

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mbrooke

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United States
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Technician
View attachment 2556109 I was talking about a cover like this one. Metal mounting screws for that cover do not attach to the switch yoke, they thread into the plastic box. Some boxes may have brass insert to thread them into, but is still set into the plastic box and isolated well enough it almost impossible for them to be energized.


In that case yes, but is the cover double insulated?
 

Hv&Lv

Senior Member
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-
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Engineer/Technician
I started in 73. I don't recall seeing any romex without a ground around here. Only in old houses a couple of times when they replaced knob and tube. very little

Plenty of undersized grounds in the 1950s & 60s houses
I’ve still got a partial roll in my shop you can have..
I just can’t bring myself to throw it out or sell it for scrap..

I did manage to throw out the unused, still in the box FP stab lock breakers I had laying around. Theses were the original fire starters... although I’ve seen more tripped than burnt.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I did manage to throw out the unused, still in the box FP stab lock breakers I had laying around. Theses were the original fire starters... although I’ve seen more tripped than burnt.
You've seen a tripped FP breaker? 😲
 

mbrooke

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United States
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Technician
I don’t think it’s a huge issue either. Full disclosure I do bond switch yokes now, but we never did when I worked for another guy because most of the work was in the county so it wasn’t inspected. He was used to the day when it wasn’t required and just continued that practice up through the years.

However now that I own my own business (home building) whenever we do electrical in-house switch yokes get bonded. I like to leave one long pigtail and hit all the yokes with it.

With that being said, I’ve always had a hard time with the “likely to become energized” wording. I don’t think a switch yoke has a high probability of becoming energized....I don’t think most metallic objects have a high probability of becoming energized.

More like “could possibly become energized”


I think regardless of probability there should always be an EGC on anything that is capable of becoming energized.

Remember that it was the same logic of having grounded objects near by vs not vs likely/not likely to be energized which lead to the whole cluster of two prong appliances and GFCIs.
 

mbrooke

Batteries Included
Location
United States
Occupation
Technician
I’ve still got a partial roll in my shop you can have..
I just can’t bring myself to throw it out or sell it for scrap..

I did manage to throw out the unused, still in the box FP stab lock breakers I had laying around. Theses were the original fire starters... although I’ve seen more tripped than burnt.


What? I love collecting new in box stuff.
 

James L

Senior Member
Location
Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
Occupation
Electrician
I don’t think it’s a huge issue either. Full disclosure I do bond switch yokes now, but we never did when I worked for another guy because most of the work was in the county so it wasn’t inspected. He was used to the day when it wasn’t required and just continued that practice up through the years.

However now that I own my own business (home building) whenever we do electrical in-house switch yokes get bonded. I like to leave one long pigtail and hit all the yokes with it.

With that being said, I’ve always had a hard time with the “likely to become energized” wording. I don’t think a switch yoke has a high probability of becoming energized....I don’t think most metallic objects have a high probability of becoming energized.

More like “could possibly become energized”
I agree that it's not likely. In fact, I gate landing a ground wire on a switch because it's next to impossible to get a live wire on or off the switch without touching the side of the yoke 😡

But I do it because I got failed once about 15 years ago and I'd rather be good on an inspection.

But lots of guys around here still don't.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I agree that it's not likely. In fact, I gate landing a ground wire on a switch because it's next to impossible to get a live wire on or off the switch without touching the side of the yoke 😡

But I do it because I got failed once about 15 years ago and I'd rather be good on an inspection.

But lots of guys around here still don't.
But your safety guys say you not supposed to do that live.

Hint, I have disconnected the EGC a time or two before connecting/disconnecting the ungrounded conductors.
 

James L

Senior Member
Location
Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
Occupation
Electrician
But your safety guys say you not supposed to do that live.

Hint, I have disconnected the EGC a time or two before connecting/disconnecting the ungrounded conductors.
I know, I know. Safety First 😏

And I just have such a habit of making the ground first to connect and last to disconnect, that I don't think to go at it that way
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I know, I know. Safety First 😏

And I just have such a habit of making the ground first to connect and last to disconnect, that I don't think to go at it that way
Even connecting a 120 volt receptacle, consider that making the ground up last means if you contact the hot inadvertently the yoke is in your other hand and is floating if not connected yet. That leaves the main risk with whatever you are standing on or possibly leaning on being a ground path, which if you are doing live work you probably are paying attention to that as well to try to minimize that factor.
 

retirede

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Even connecting a 120 volt receptacle, consider that making the ground up last means if you contact the hot inadvertently the yoke is in your other hand and is floating if not connected yet. That leaves the main risk with whatever you are standing on or possibly leaning on being a ground path, which if you are doing live work you probably are paying attention to that as well to try to minimize that factor.

Just like working on a car - disconnect the negative (ground) battery lead first.
It may save tool damage or worse.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Even connecting a 120 volt receptacle, consider that making the ground up last means if you contact the hot inadvertently the yoke is in your other hand and is floating if not connected yet. That leaves the main risk with whatever you are standing on or possibly leaning on being a ground path, which if you are doing live work you probably are paying attention to that as well to try to minimize that factor.
I always grip the yoke with my pliers when I do that hot.
 

mbrooke

Batteries Included
Location
United States
Occupation
Technician
I started working in this trade in 1987. My first boss was pretty good with code knowledge, yet we still ran quite a bit of 2 wire with ground mostly to dryers, the ranges we usually ran #6 SEU which would have been code compliant anyway.



In his defense look what I found on Ebay:





Red, Green, Black

Going by the receptacle alone you would think you were right.

Personally I wish manufacturers had dropped all the 120 bells and whistles and NEMA simply renamed this receptacle as a grounding receptacle.

Those NEMA 6-50s are just silly.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
In his defense look what I found on Ebay:





Red, Green, Black

Going by the receptacle alone you would think you were right.

Personally I wish manufacturers had dropped all the 120 bells and whistles and NEMA simply renamed this receptacle as a grounding receptacle.

Those NEMA 6-50s are just silly.
I still use a lot of 10-50's on farms, for purposes that likely should be using 6-50's. Problem is these have been used for so long nobody wants you to put in anything else, if you did they would either need to change existing receptacles or make up adapter cords. Usually used for equipment that gets moved from site to site.

That seller must think he has something special? $10.00? I just bought new Leviton version last week at supply house for only $3.20.
 

mbrooke

Batteries Included
Location
United States
Occupation
Technician
I still use a lot of 10-50's on farms, for purposes that likely should be using 6-50's. Problem is these have been used for so long nobody wants you to put in anything else, if you did they would either need to change existing receptacles or make up adapter cords. Usually used for equipment that gets moved from site to site.

That seller must think he has something special? $10.00? I just bought new Leviton version last week at supply house for only $3.20.


The thing is the grounding contacts on these NEMA receptacles is 1000x better than those cheesey round pin & tongs scheme.
 
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