30amp CB on #14 Romex

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sfav8r

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Jsut curious what others do in this situation.

I was at a call today for a simple troubleshoot/repair call. While I was there, I noticed that the house was apparently wired by someone other than an electrician (God I hope it wasn't an electrician). Even though the 2,000 foot addition was done in 1989 with permits, all of the kitchen outlets, the microwave, dishwasher, and one living room outlet are on one circuit. As if this wasn't bad enough, it is a 15amp circuit. The icing on the cakes is that someone solved the problem by putting it on a 30 amp breaker. I advised the customer that this was dangerous, and wrote the same thing on the invoice for the unrelated repair.

My question is this. What do you do in this situation? I don't want to leave them thinking the breaker has to be changed immediately or the hosuse will burn down, however I feel very stronly that the breaker should have been changed on the spot. The owner did seem concerned, but basically said he wanted to think it over. He knew that if I installed the 15amp breaker, it would constantly trip. They are planning a remodel of the kitchen "soon", and may wait till then. Any thoughts on the best way to handle this?

Thanks.

By the way, I didn't have my camera with me, but I was quite impressed with the use of red wire for the neutral on the range circuit, and the fact that they kept the sheathing on the Romex all the way to the breaker. How did they handle the neutrals you ask? They slit the sheathing and pulled just the neutral out as needed and did the same with the ground. Also, every ground wire was wrapped with green tape! It looks like someon TRIED to do a good job, but didn't have the knowledge and didn't grasp the concept.
 
I would have left him with the very real thought of a posibile of a fire if he continued to protect the circuit with a 30 amp breaker. I feel this way because you mentioned that the circuit would continue to trip if it were protected properly.
 
I would explain the situation to the HO and strongly emphasize that this is an accident (fire) waiting to happen. Granted, it has lasted this long without causing problems, but perhaps there has never been a situation where there has been a sizeable load on the circuit. If something is added such as an air conditioner or other larger appliance, it could jack up the draw on the circuit and cause that #14 romex to really become a safety issue. Is it possible to pull another circuit or 2 and split up what is already in place? This would alleviate the problem of constant breaker tripping that the 15 amp breaker would probably cause.
 
I encountered a similar disaster a few years ago. Someone had changed out two old fuse panels in a two family house with new CB panels. They used twisted together parallel #10 THHN conductors for the 60 amps conductors from the meters. I immediately left the place and called the landlord. Told him that what I found was putting the tenants in imminent danger and that I touched nothing and wouldn't go back unless the thing was properly repaired. He said he would think about it. Also followed up the phone call with a certified letter. I think that he got the hint and had someone fix the mess.
 
You cant win in a case like this.Best thing you can do is nothing or fix everything.If you call the local inspector you will lose the customer and not even sure if he could do much with out there ok to look at it.I would have told the customer they are in very serious risk of fire and it needs fixed right this minute or stop using it.The inspection if it had one was done by someone that never looked.
 
30amp CB on #14 Romex

infinity said:
I encountered a similar disaster a few years ago. Someone had changed out two old fuse panels in a two family house with new CB panels. They used twisted together parallel #10 THHN conductors for the 60 amps conductors from the meters. I immediately left the place and called the landlord. Told him that what I found was putting the tenants in imminent danger and that I touched nothing and wouldn't go back unless the thing was properly repaired. He said he would think about it. Also followed up the phone call with a certified letter. I think that he got the hint and had someone fix the mess.
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The certified letter is the best idea,I do it all the time when doing inspections.
 
What were you called to trouble shoot in the first place? Most cases when you see something this bad, the home owner is the one that wired it in the first place. My fear would be that since it is Christmas time they are going to over load the circuit. I see that you are in the SF bay area, if you watched the news this morning you would have seen a house in San Jose had a fire last night, hope that wasn't them.
 
Thanks for the input. I like the idea of sending the certified letter. They could always "lose" the invoice.

FYI - In regards to ACRWC10's question. This house is in Berkeley. The work was done prior to the current h/o purchasing the home. I was originally called for an inoperable garbage disposal which was a faulty switch.
 
As I see it, one problem you would have in this kind of situation is that the customer might just think you are fishing for more business, and that any statements about “imminent danger of fire” are just an attempt to scare them into paying you to do more work.

Here is one possible solution to that problem. On this very thread, you can see the opinions of six professionals who do not know each other, except through this Forum, and who may very well live in six different states. To that I will add my own opinion that this is a situation that presents a real and present danger of a fire. That makes it seven professional opinions that are essentially the same.

So what you can do is to give them a link to this thread, and invite them to read the opinions posted here. Then invite them to call another electrician or two, or three, or six. Tell them it doesn’t matter so much to you that you get the work, but it does matter to you that they live in a home that is safe.
 
infinity said:
I immediately left the place and called the landlord.


Also followed up the phone call with a certified letter. I think that he got the hint and had someone fix the mess.
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Why didn't he have YOU to do the repair? (rhetorical question)

Knowing LL's the way I do...I doubt he had anyone repair it.
 
The problem, of course, is that while we _know_ that this is a serious danger, the HO has the clear evidence that the circuit has been working just fine for a number of years. How do you educate the customer of the very real danger without looking like an overblown fear-monger?

The reality is that 14ga romex 'protected' by a 30A breaker will _probably_ work fine until the house is torn down for other reasons. This is a residential circuit, meaning that it is only sometimes loaded to full trip rating. Probably modern romex, with a 90C rating and a 25A 90C ampacity. Finally 'probably work fine' means less than 50% chance of failure. The chance of failure is unacceptable only because properly installed circuits are so safe. Pulling numbers out of my bum, say a properly installed and maintained circuit has a 1:1000000000 chance of failing in a fashion that causes a fire. Say a circuit such as the one above is 10000x more dangerous. This is still only a 1:100000 chance of a fire. Thus a circuit like this could be pretty safe, will work for years, and still be far far far to dangerous to be acceptable.

-Jon
 
winnie said:
The problem, of course, is that while we _know_ that this is a serious danger, the HO has the clear evidence that the circuit has been working just fine for a number of years. How do you educate the customer of the very real danger without looking like an overblown fear-monger?

The reality is that 14ga romex 'protected' by a 30A breaker will _probably_ work fine until the house is torn down for other reasons. This is a residential circuit, meaning that it is only sometimes loaded to full trip rating. Probably modern romex, with a 90C rating and a 25A 90C ampacity. Finally 'probably work fine' means less than 50% chance of failure. The chance of failure is unacceptable only because properly installed circuits are so safe. Pulling numbers out of my bum, say a properly installed and maintained circuit has a 1:1000000000 chance of failing in a fashion that causes a fire. Say a circuit such as the one above is 10000x more dangerous. This is still only a 1:100000 chance of a fire. Thus a circuit like this could be pretty safe, will work for years, and still be far far far to dangerous to be acceptable.

-Jon
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I use to do fire jobs often.I remember a #12 romex with 30 amp fuse.They were very lucky to have a fast fire department that used infrared to seek the heat area and did minor damage to ceiling.This far was not a killer.How would you feel if in next year or whatever you read about this house burned down and killed a small kid ? Had you done more perhaps this never would happened.Overfused is never a good thing.
 
winnie said:
The problem, of course, is that while we _know_ that this is a serious danger, the HO has the clear evidence that the circuit has been working just fine for a number of years. How do you educate the customer of the very real danger without looking like an overblown fear-monger?

The reality is that 14ga romex 'protected' by a 30A breaker will _probably_ work fine until the house is torn down for other reasons. This is a residential circuit, meaning that it is only sometimes loaded to full trip rating. Probably modern romex, with a 90C rating and a 25A 90C ampacity. Finally 'probably work fine' means less than 50% chance of failure. The chance of failure is unacceptable only because properly installed circuits are so safe. Pulling numbers out of my bum, say a properly installed and maintained circuit has a 1:1000000000 chance of failing in a fashion that causes a fire. Say a circuit such as the one above is 10000x more dangerous. This is still only a 1:100000 chance of a fire. Thus a circuit like this could be pretty safe, will work for years, and still be far far far to dangerous to be acceptable.

-Jon
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Now please know I am not trying to be mean,I like you, but , ARE YOU CRAZY! This is bad. Berkley and Oakland had one of the biggest fires in the country a few years ago "the Oakland hills fire". It was one of the worst fires in the last 50 years. I feel better knowing that someone who cares has seen this job and wants to help the home owner understand that it needs to be fixed "NOW".
 
acrwc10 said:
Now please know I am not trying to be mean,I like you, but , ARE YOU CRAZY! This is bad. Berkley and Oakland had one of the biggest fires in the country a few years ago "the Oakland hills fire". It was one of the worst fires in the last 50 years. I feel better knowing that someone who cares has seen this job and wants to help the home owner understand that it needs to be fixed "NOW".
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Yes it does need fixed now.But here we have a landlord and he sees #1 it works.#2 fixing this will cost thousands.#3 if he waits and fire takes this down he might get it done with insurance money.His goal is profit from what he invested.The tenant should demand he fixes this or move out.And a tenant could allow an inspector in to see the violation.
 
winnie said:
Say a circuit such as the one above is 10000x more dangerous. This is still only a 1:100000 chance of a fire. Thus a circuit like this could be pretty safe, will work for years, and still be far far far to dangerous to be acceptable.
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Quoting myself to answer acrwc10 and Jim W.

I am in no way trying to say that #14 on a 30A breaker is an acceptable installation.

I am trying to help come up with a description that would help educate a customer about 'why it works, why it has worked that way for years, and why you still need to pull it out now and fix it.'

If you find this situation on a job, and you tell the customer 'This wire is going to burst into flames in the next day.', then they will call your BS. It is very unlikely that a 14ga conductor carrying 30A will burst into flames. The chance of failure leading to a fire is very small (more likely: failure that leads to a short and trips the breaker), but still far to high to be acceptable.

Think eating raw eggs. People eat raw eggs all the time. People get away with this _most_ of the time. Sometimes they get salmonella and are sick. Some of these people die. The risk of dying from eating a raw egg is still very small. The risk of dying from eating a cooked egg is much smaller. Some areas legislate that it is no legal for restaurants to feed people raw egg, because the risk is so much greater.

My guess is that the risk difference between #14 on a 30A breaker and #14 on a 15A breaker is much bigger than the risk difference between a raw egg and a cooked egg.

-Jon
 
winnie said:
I am trying to help come up with a description that would help educate a customer about 'why it works, why it has worked that way for years, and why you still need to pull it out now and fix it.'
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I like to use the following analogy, whenever someone tells me, ?It?s never been a problem before.?

  • Suppose that just before you back your car out of the driveway each morning, you put on blinders and earmuffs.


  • Suppose that you wait for a random amount of time, and then just back into the street.


  • When you get into the street, you can take off the blinders and the earmuffs, and drive to work.


  • Question: If you do this ten days in a row, and if you don?t hit anything during those ten days, would you conclude that this is a safe driving habit? Or would it take 20 consecutive days without incident, to convince you it was safe? 30? How many?

Everyone is welcome to steal this analogy shamelessly. ;) But give me authorship credit, if you wish to use the following aphorism:
"An accident waiting for a place to happen will, given time, find that place.? Charlie Beck
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It is going to be very hard to convince them that there is imminent danger because their experience says that there is none.

I suspect that it is unlikely they ever pull 30 A on the circuit long enough to overheat the conductors enough to cause an overheating issue.

I hate to suggest a solution that is not code compliant but did you consider replacing it with a 20A breaker as an expedient measure? Not code compliant but far safer. I'd be inclined to follow up such a thing with a letter explaining that while what you did improved the safety of the installation, it is still a problem. Maybe a copy to the AHJ.

And maybe a 20A CB trips now and then. If so, it would encourage them to get it fixed.
 
Not a bad thought, Bob, but I suspect it?s not a good plan. If the house were to burn down, which it might anyway if nothing is done, and if they discover that the EC installed a 20 amp breaker knowing it was a code violation and knowing it would not make the house safe, then the EC will be called upon to answer for it. Although it is true that ?unsafe, but safer than it was? is better than ?unsafe, and I?m doing nothing about it,? I fear it would prove irrelevant in a court of law.
 
I agree with Charlie, it is up to the owner to deside to do anything or not. The problem is "you touch it, you own it". I have seen plenty of correctly breakered wires in light fixtures that were cooked to the point the insulation was hard cracked and falling off, this may have tripped the breaker then burned clear. Not a safe situation, but the light came on. People will stand there and try and reset the breaker all day untill it stops tripping.Once it holds "ah it must be fixed, I just saved money by not having to call the electrician."
If this is a new owner and the house was inspected, I would be going back to the seller and asking WTF? Who wired it and expecting compensation for repairing the problem. Although most people would not , they should be informed honestly and if that means "it may be a fire hazard" that is true.You don't know what other hazards exist under the sheet rock that are not os glaring as a 30 cb on #14. Winnie did you just watch Rockey again to come up with your raw egg sinario??????:grin:
 
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