Ground Dead End

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Mike01

Mike01

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MidWest
I had an electrician ask me this yesterday and I was could not ansewer the question, I work mostly with commerical installations so was not familiar with this type of installation, in a residential installation there are plastic back boxes? with what porcelian style incandescent lamp holders however they are plastic when they reached the last fixture they connected the switch leg and neutral to the screws on the fixture but had no where to connect the ground without knowing they were plastic boxes my response was connect it to the box ground but with a plastic box what would you do? he indicated he capped the ground with a wire nut, but I was not sure this was the poper thing to do, but could not find anything like this in my code book.
 
There is absolutely nothing to do. Just roll it up out of the way-- why bother with a cap on it esp. if it is bare.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
There is absolutely nothing to do. Just roll it up out of the way-- why bother with a cap on it esp. if it is bare.
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I disagree. I like the wirenut. I've been in countless keyless that the ground ends up settling down against the ungrounded terminal and tripping the breaker when the lights turn on.

And I have seen keyless's with a place to land a ground, and a thin bar to each screw to ground the screws. Good idea. But they're hard to find
 
mcclary's electrical said:
I disagree. I like the wirenut. I've been in countless keyless that the ground ends up settling down against the ungrounded terminal and tripping the breaker when the lights turn on.
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If you are concerned about that, I would imagine you should tape the entire EGC up. The wirenut will only protect the very end of the wire from touching a terminal, the rest of the conductor is fully exposed and can contact the terminal at any time.

Me, I just tuck it in the back behind the other wires deep enough that no part of it will ever have a chance to touch the keyless.
 
mcclary's electrical said:
I disagree. I like the wirenut. I've been in countless keyless that the ground ends up settling down against the ungrounded terminal and tripping the breaker when the lights turn on.
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I think you are nuts, its a bare EGC how is a wire nut helping?

Just take .5 seconds and push the EGC to the back of the box.
 
iwire said:
I think you are nuts, its a bare EGC how is a wire nut helping?

Just take .5 seconds and push the EGC to the back of the box.
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I actually have never had a problem with any I have installed. EVER.


I, however, have been in countless that have shorted out. The wirenut is not a bad idea. Me personally, I clip out about 2" long so it can't touch anything. I was just agreeing with the wirenut idea, even though I don't do it
 
mcclary's electrical said:
Me personally, I clip out about 2" long so it can't touch anything.
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I hate finding that, especially when replacing the keyless with a fixture that requires a bond or running another light out of that box.

Why not leave it the proper length and fold it in the back of the box?
 
M4gery said:
I hate finding that, especially when replacing the keyless with a fixture that requires a bond or running another light out of that box.

Why not leave it the proper length and fold it in the back of the box?
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Because that's long enough to stick a pigtail wirenut on it if you need a ground
 
I nut it

I nut it

Especially if its a feed through situation, because after I push my wirenutted ground wire into the box, I can push my wirenutted grounded conductors and wirenutted ungrounded conductors into the box without a second thought. I know 100% for sure the end of that bare ground wire will never find its way into one of my other wirenuts. The cost of a wirenut compared to the time to really watch how the wires and other wirenuts end up sitting in that box is worth it to me. Love my peace of mind.
 
mjf said:
Especially if its a feed through situation, because after I push my wirenutted ground wire into the box, I can push my wirenutted grounded conductors and wirenutted ungrounded conductors into the box without a second thought. I know 100% for sure the end of that bare ground wire will never find its way into one of my other wirenuts. The cost of a wirenut compared to the time to really watch how the wires and other wirenuts end up sitting in that box is worth it to me. Love my peace of mind.
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If it's a feed thru situation you would have to use a wirenut.

Since we are talking about a dead end, the grounded and ungrounded conductors would be landed on the keyless and not wirenutted, so you could still have your 100% surety that the bare ground will never find it's way into one of the other wirenuts (since there are none).
 
I have cursed many electricians who have cut their ground wire 2 ". I want something I can work with. I have installed thousands of keyless with the grounds tucked back and never had a problem. My tails are at least 6"-8" long. You can wirenut all you want but it seems absurd to me.

Wire will not migrate from the back of a box to where the keyless terminals are unless you don't push the wire back on the install.
 
Just a bit of info here. The op was asking about code. I stated there was nothing he needed to do but push the wire back. You can disagree with my technique but can you disagree with what is code compliant. I think I answered the op's question- you are free, of course, to do it your way but that is not answering the question.
 
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