334.15

[sd4524]

Last week I worked a job where i replaced all of the knob and tube wiring for a small house. (Thank You house flippers who made the "jumpers" from neutral to ground and reversed the polarity)
All of the new romex wire was run under the house in the crawl space. It is literally a belly crawl the entire time under the house. I would say the most room you ever had is 2 feet total. Some parts are smaller. Luckily I am a small guy and in pretty good shape. All of the wire gets stapled to the bottom of the floor joists. I can't even imagine dragging a hole hawg or corded drill under the house and drilling all of the floor joists.
Is a crawl space defined anywhere? Inspector passed this job no problems. I can't imagine the space under an old house here in SoCal being the same as East Coast basement or crawl space. If I ever have to drill these then i might need to look for a new line of work. Remember, I said the highest point under house is probably 2 feet.
What do you guys think?

 

[don_resqcapt19]

I don't even see any real problem running it on the bottom of the joists in a basement, other than the code violation. The CMP says it is to prevent people from hanging things on it. Running it through holes provides a better hanger than when it is stapled to the bottom of the joints, unless you are using a staple at each joist.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

NC amended to the 2008 code that requires the wires in crawl spaces to be either guarded or drilled. I hate the rule myself- perhaps the inspector used common sense.

 

[renosteinke]

A wee bit off topic ... but if you ever do need to drill joists, a cordless impact driver with the Irwin SuperBor-Max (the three flute twisted spade) bit is the cat's meow. I get at least 10 large holes per 12v battery charge. The hole shebang - driver and bit - fits between 16"OC joists, and there's no tensency of the tool to twist in your hand.