BMacky
Senior Member
- Location
- Foster City, CA
OK, I will try to make this one short: had an inspector look into an upper cabinet above an exhaust hood in a newly-remodeled kitchen. The hood is over an electric range. I attached an appliance pigtail to the top side of the hood and ran it up into the cab as you would for a microwave, and have a dedicated outlet inside the cab. Idea was future built-in microwave, and mfr required dedicated circuit for hood, so went with a receptacle here.
Inspectors issue with the set-up: "You can't go from a 12-2 (feeding the outlet), to a 16 gauge appliance pigtail and down to 18 gauge wire in the fixture. That's 2 steps down. I'd accept one step down but not two." (he's speaking of conductor sizing). Hello? Am I missing something?
We are talking about ampacities and conductors, I guess? I was not standing the inspection, so no request for a reference on this. Can anyone tell me if there is some other Code issue I am not aware of here? Seems to me that he is talking about wire size only and NOT ampacity of wire types. It's an appliance, just like slapping a pigtail on a dishwasher.
Help needed, and thanks in advance. (Looking for a sanity check mainly)
Inspectors issue with the set-up: "You can't go from a 12-2 (feeding the outlet), to a 16 gauge appliance pigtail and down to 18 gauge wire in the fixture. That's 2 steps down. I'd accept one step down but not two." (he's speaking of conductor sizing). Hello? Am I missing something?
We are talking about ampacities and conductors, I guess? I was not standing the inspection, so no request for a reference on this. Can anyone tell me if there is some other Code issue I am not aware of here? Seems to me that he is talking about wire size only and NOT ampacity of wire types. It's an appliance, just like slapping a pigtail on a dishwasher.
Help needed, and thanks in advance. (Looking for a sanity check mainly)