Ok, from what i see this site is all about not empowering DIY'ers, and i want to make it CLEAR i am not asking about this particular situation in an attempt to gain advice about doing something myself, i am trying to get advice on how to deal with an electrician and an inspector that are driving me totally nuts!!! So come on pro's, give me some advice on how to approach these guys so i know what's going on here!!
I work primarily in the low voltage and networking world, but even my nose is sniffing something wrong here. So here it is...
House to Non-Attached Garage Sub Panel...
The main panel in the basement of the house has a two pole 20a breaker feeding 12/3 Romex to a J-Box on the outside of the foundation wall. There is conduit through the foundation wall, and there is a box on both sides of the foundation wall. To clarify, there is a PVC two gang box on the inside of the foundation and the outside of the foundation and a piece of conduit going through the foundation, a threaded fitting glued on both ends and a hole drilled in the center of the back of the box on both sides with a nut attaching the conduit fitting to the box. With me so far?
The electrician did all this, i have NOTHING to do with this install, i will clarify why i am trying to solve this in a bit...
Ok, to continue... They ran the Romex from the main panel to the inside box, about a 20 foot run, drilled a hole in the side of the box (these are not the pre-punched boxes with breakouts but the type you see in a big box home improvement store with a foam gasket lid and a plain gray box) for the NM connector to hold the Romex. (sorry if i get any of the terminology wrong its not my day job, LOL) Then from the inside box to the outside box they ran THWN wire, from the splice in the inside box to the panel in the garage is a total run of about 35 feet, wire nuts on all conductors making the splice in the inside box. The outside box has what i believe you call a liquid-tite flexible conduit connector in the bottom side facing the ground, it appears to be a wet location one with a gasket and its like a cable gland we use installing outdoor and DB networking cable, from there its liquid-tite NM flexible conduit down the side of the foundation, about two feet and goes into the ground, they hand dug a trench across about six feet of ground, then tunneled under a four foot wide sidewalk, then through about six more feet of ground to the side of the garage. The garage is brick, so they attached the flexible conduit about five foot up the side of the garage, drilled through the brick, and installed a conduit body on the end of the flexible conduit, it appears to be simply glued onto the end of the conduit and then the right angle exit had another piece of rigid conduit glued into it to make a stub with a threaded fitting glued on the inside end to attach it to the back of the small two breaker panel thats attached to the inside wall of the garage. From there of course one circuit is outlets, one circuit is lights, its not feeding much and thats really not where the concerns are.
Ok so i think i outlined as well as i could what this electrician did.
Now here is what i did for my part of the job... Networking cable, direct burial rated Cat6 and two runs of RG6 quad shielded coax from a junction box mounted on the inside of the foundation with Keystone plate and jacks for the network and the two coaxial cables, passes through the foundation wall through conduit attached to the back side of that junction box and on the outside i used a conduit body to make the right angle turn, from there straight conduit to the ground, a nice sweep to turn horizontal to the ground, and then fully enclosed in conduit about 50' to the garage wall, sweep up, conduit up the wall, conduit body to turn right angle, drilled hole in brick, conduit through brick, box inside attached to conduit, and again another plate with Keystones for the network and coaxial cables. The inspector wanted me to tear it all up as he said conduit wasn't necessary, tell that to the homeowner when something cuts through the cable in the future unprotected, and that i shouldn't have run my own conduit line for them since the electrician was already running conduit for his install... I basically turned and walked away at that point disgusted but i hear the arguing between him and the electrician and come back to hear the rest, and that left me pondering the rest of the day what this inspector was ranting about.
Here is my questions...
The inspector came by this job, and the reason i got tied into all this is i was responsible for running some networking cable and coaxial cable from the same house to the same garage. However i didn't touch the electrical install, nowhere near it actually. But in the process of the inspector looking over the electrical install he brought up some stuff that i know isn't right and also raised some questions as to the abilities of the electrician for future use in projects, this is why i am here, i need to see what others think.
1. He asked the electrician why he didn't run a larger conduit so that the networking and coaxial cables couldn't be run in the same line. Well my argument is you don't run networking cable and coaxial cable with AC, aka high voltage lines, in the same conduit, but he swore up and down how they should have been run together but i know better, at least i think i do! First off its just a no-no, but second off how did he expect the network cable and the coaxial cable to be handled at the garage panel end? It would have run into the sub-panel since it was directly connected to the back side of it through the wall. Still scratching my head over why an inspector would say this.
2. That the flexible conduit run is too long for the intended use and is not allowed, at which point he also mentions that the flexible conduit cannot be glued into the conduit body. Perhaps thats mainly for mains voltage? Because i have seen that done many times for networking bundles being passed from flexible conduit to a conduit body, but then we aren't dealing with high voltages so... He also said that UF cable should have been used inside the flexible conduit instead of separate THWN conductors... Huh?? Again i don't know much of the electrical code but one i hear from electricians on sites all the time is you don't run Romex through conduit of any kind, although UF is direct burial and outdoor rated isn't THWN suitable in conduit in wet locations? Correct me if i am wrong but even inside conduit if its outside and/or in the ground its considered a wet location correct?
3. Why go through all the trouble of the setup he did on the foundation wall with a box inside and outside and joined by a piece of conduit, could he not have just put a single box on the inside? Again this isn't my domain but i think it just looks like overkill and overbilling of materials using all that, but then i don't know the code involved with that other then i would assume going through the foundation is considered a wet location even before it gets to the outside? The main reason i am asking about this is the inspector wants to see the coaxial and network cables handled in a similar fashion, as i described above i used a right angle conduit body on the outside, its quicker and cleaner looking then another square box to make the downward transition... Considering 99% of the homes around here have their cable tv coax drilled through the concrete foundation and just standard RG6 passed through and a little caulking on both sides i think the overkill i did on my install of running rigid conduit from a box on the inside of the foundation wall to the garage outlet location, not located anywhere near the electrical entrance by the way, is more then sufficient and it looks clean and neat.
4. Tell me how the electrician should have better handled his install and how i should handle it? Basically i'm just a friend of the homeowner, but i hired the electrician to do the electrical part of this garage wiring because i'm no electrician, replace a receptacle, no problem, replace a switch, ok. Rough in something and have it all up to code, NO THANK YOU... Not my place. Should i tell him rip it all out start over, should i specify how anything should be done? I mean, not my place i know, he should know the code for doing his work, but enlighten me a bit here. If you were supervising the job being done by a licensed electrician tell me from your point of view what should i expect him to do in this case? Can he make simple changes or is this a complete junk it and start over?
At this time the electrical inspection has failed, although the inspector did say my install was overkill but he "will let it ride"... I'm like what? Maybe overkill, sure i could have direct buried the cables, but why risk replacement a few years from now when someone drives a planter stake or a spade through the cable. As is i ran two coaxial cables for the off chance they upgrade from cable to satellite or add an antenna input or some such, its also easier to pull a bad cable from a conduit and snake a new one in from behind then it is to dig the lawn up again in the future, his comments just really erked me...
If nothing else i feel better for ranting about it on here!!
I work primarily in the low voltage and networking world, but even my nose is sniffing something wrong here. So here it is...
House to Non-Attached Garage Sub Panel...
The main panel in the basement of the house has a two pole 20a breaker feeding 12/3 Romex to a J-Box on the outside of the foundation wall. There is conduit through the foundation wall, and there is a box on both sides of the foundation wall. To clarify, there is a PVC two gang box on the inside of the foundation and the outside of the foundation and a piece of conduit going through the foundation, a threaded fitting glued on both ends and a hole drilled in the center of the back of the box on both sides with a nut attaching the conduit fitting to the box. With me so far?
The electrician did all this, i have NOTHING to do with this install, i will clarify why i am trying to solve this in a bit...
Ok, to continue... They ran the Romex from the main panel to the inside box, about a 20 foot run, drilled a hole in the side of the box (these are not the pre-punched boxes with breakouts but the type you see in a big box home improvement store with a foam gasket lid and a plain gray box) for the NM connector to hold the Romex. (sorry if i get any of the terminology wrong its not my day job, LOL) Then from the inside box to the outside box they ran THWN wire, from the splice in the inside box to the panel in the garage is a total run of about 35 feet, wire nuts on all conductors making the splice in the inside box. The outside box has what i believe you call a liquid-tite flexible conduit connector in the bottom side facing the ground, it appears to be a wet location one with a gasket and its like a cable gland we use installing outdoor and DB networking cable, from there its liquid-tite NM flexible conduit down the side of the foundation, about two feet and goes into the ground, they hand dug a trench across about six feet of ground, then tunneled under a four foot wide sidewalk, then through about six more feet of ground to the side of the garage. The garage is brick, so they attached the flexible conduit about five foot up the side of the garage, drilled through the brick, and installed a conduit body on the end of the flexible conduit, it appears to be simply glued onto the end of the conduit and then the right angle exit had another piece of rigid conduit glued into it to make a stub with a threaded fitting glued on the inside end to attach it to the back of the small two breaker panel thats attached to the inside wall of the garage. From there of course one circuit is outlets, one circuit is lights, its not feeding much and thats really not where the concerns are.
Ok so i think i outlined as well as i could what this electrician did.
Now here is what i did for my part of the job... Networking cable, direct burial rated Cat6 and two runs of RG6 quad shielded coax from a junction box mounted on the inside of the foundation with Keystone plate and jacks for the network and the two coaxial cables, passes through the foundation wall through conduit attached to the back side of that junction box and on the outside i used a conduit body to make the right angle turn, from there straight conduit to the ground, a nice sweep to turn horizontal to the ground, and then fully enclosed in conduit about 50' to the garage wall, sweep up, conduit up the wall, conduit body to turn right angle, drilled hole in brick, conduit through brick, box inside attached to conduit, and again another plate with Keystones for the network and coaxial cables. The inspector wanted me to tear it all up as he said conduit wasn't necessary, tell that to the homeowner when something cuts through the cable in the future unprotected, and that i shouldn't have run my own conduit line for them since the electrician was already running conduit for his install... I basically turned and walked away at that point disgusted but i hear the arguing between him and the electrician and come back to hear the rest, and that left me pondering the rest of the day what this inspector was ranting about.
Here is my questions...
The inspector came by this job, and the reason i got tied into all this is i was responsible for running some networking cable and coaxial cable from the same house to the same garage. However i didn't touch the electrical install, nowhere near it actually. But in the process of the inspector looking over the electrical install he brought up some stuff that i know isn't right and also raised some questions as to the abilities of the electrician for future use in projects, this is why i am here, i need to see what others think.
1. He asked the electrician why he didn't run a larger conduit so that the networking and coaxial cables couldn't be run in the same line. Well my argument is you don't run networking cable and coaxial cable with AC, aka high voltage lines, in the same conduit, but he swore up and down how they should have been run together but i know better, at least i think i do! First off its just a no-no, but second off how did he expect the network cable and the coaxial cable to be handled at the garage panel end? It would have run into the sub-panel since it was directly connected to the back side of it through the wall. Still scratching my head over why an inspector would say this.
2. That the flexible conduit run is too long for the intended use and is not allowed, at which point he also mentions that the flexible conduit cannot be glued into the conduit body. Perhaps thats mainly for mains voltage? Because i have seen that done many times for networking bundles being passed from flexible conduit to a conduit body, but then we aren't dealing with high voltages so... He also said that UF cable should have been used inside the flexible conduit instead of separate THWN conductors... Huh?? Again i don't know much of the electrical code but one i hear from electricians on sites all the time is you don't run Romex through conduit of any kind, although UF is direct burial and outdoor rated isn't THWN suitable in conduit in wet locations? Correct me if i am wrong but even inside conduit if its outside and/or in the ground its considered a wet location correct?
3. Why go through all the trouble of the setup he did on the foundation wall with a box inside and outside and joined by a piece of conduit, could he not have just put a single box on the inside? Again this isn't my domain but i think it just looks like overkill and overbilling of materials using all that, but then i don't know the code involved with that other then i would assume going through the foundation is considered a wet location even before it gets to the outside? The main reason i am asking about this is the inspector wants to see the coaxial and network cables handled in a similar fashion, as i described above i used a right angle conduit body on the outside, its quicker and cleaner looking then another square box to make the downward transition... Considering 99% of the homes around here have their cable tv coax drilled through the concrete foundation and just standard RG6 passed through and a little caulking on both sides i think the overkill i did on my install of running rigid conduit from a box on the inside of the foundation wall to the garage outlet location, not located anywhere near the electrical entrance by the way, is more then sufficient and it looks clean and neat.
4. Tell me how the electrician should have better handled his install and how i should handle it? Basically i'm just a friend of the homeowner, but i hired the electrician to do the electrical part of this garage wiring because i'm no electrician, replace a receptacle, no problem, replace a switch, ok. Rough in something and have it all up to code, NO THANK YOU... Not my place. Should i tell him rip it all out start over, should i specify how anything should be done? I mean, not my place i know, he should know the code for doing his work, but enlighten me a bit here. If you were supervising the job being done by a licensed electrician tell me from your point of view what should i expect him to do in this case? Can he make simple changes or is this a complete junk it and start over?
At this time the electrical inspection has failed, although the inspector did say my install was overkill but he "will let it ride"... I'm like what? Maybe overkill, sure i could have direct buried the cables, but why risk replacement a few years from now when someone drives a planter stake or a spade through the cable. As is i ran two coaxial cables for the off chance they upgrade from cable to satellite or add an antenna input or some such, its also easier to pull a bad cable from a conduit and snake a new one in from behind then it is to dig the lawn up again in the future, his comments just really erked me...
If nothing else i feel better for ranting about it on here!!
