Explanations

[jap]

I think if the NEC had a brief explanation of how the Code Requirements were arrived at, It would be much easier to understand and would curb a lot of the Speculations.
I know the Handbook makes a lot more sense for the simple fact that it sometimes gives brief explanations of how the Rule was arrived at.


For example in my truck theres a switch on the dash, when you flip it down it turns on the amplified Speaker for my scanner. One would think that you would flip it up for on, but the reason for it is when I get out of my truck I have to take the Key out to turn off all the warning bells and whistles and I generally hang the keys on the Toggle switch. This does 2 things, Kills the power to my Amplified Speaker and gives me a place to hang my key.
Without knowing this others would question why down was on.

 

[JohnJ0906]

Check the ROPs and ROCs.

Often they give a good explanation of the submitter's reasoning.

 

[jap]

Forgive my ignorance, but what are ROP's and ROC's and where to I go to find them?

 

[JohnJ0906]

Report on Proposals and Report on Comments. The NFPA web site has some of them.

Check the FAQs George did a much better job of explaining the Code making process than I can.

 

[wawireguy]

Or maybe the code book should do a better job of explaining itself. I shouldn't have to read the code book then go read other documentation to explain what the code book ment in the first place. Call me crazy but I think that anyone with a reasonable grasp of the english language should be able to read the NEC and understand what they are getting at.

 

[tom baker]

The NEC is not an instruction manual. You must have a grasp of basic electrical theory to understand some of the requirements, such as why conductors are run in parallel, why a ferrous conduit with a GEC enclosed requires bonding....
The handbook does a good job on some of this, or try the american electricians handbook

 

[480sparky]

As Tom stated, it's not an instruction book. It's a legal document.

 

[charlie]

. . . It's a legal document.

That is also why we have such a hard time getting the wording correct. It has to be exact while being relatively easy to understand. Several years ago, the NFPA had an English professor go though a portion of the code to correct the English and make it easy to understand. The problem was that the actual meaning was changed and that part was a mess for a couple of cycles.

 

[SMB]

As Sparky says.....it is a legal document that is open to interpretation and not to be easily understood by mere mortal engineers like myself. I'm sure an attorney can easily decipher it for his profiting needs.......