Heated Floor wiring - this can't be right??

[tthh]

I finally bought a house. I recommend to never move during a pandemic It was worth it really -- got to spend more time with my father in his last couple years.

Fancy house and bigger than we wanted, but the house selection isn't so good these days. At least this one has views and most of what I could see was a solidly built house.

Lots of bells and whistles. I'm programming and reprogramming and fixing all the nits in the house. Most of what I can see was done well and professionally and a number of permits over the years.

On my list to investigate is the thing in the photo and today was the day.

It reads 120V and the braided wires are individual #16 or #14. I think it goes to the kitchen radiant floor. This is the lower level not too far from the kitchen, but it isn't inches away, it is feet away. It goes off to another box with another set of the braided wires leaving it.

I have no experience with radiant floors, but this can't be acceptable??

 

[tthh]

I should add the kitchen floor has been redone and is now wood and I can't find a control

So, maybe it is something else????

 

[tthh]

Ok, I ran it down some more. It isn't 120V, I wasn't getting a good look at the meter and it is really more like 120 mV. I found the feed and it is disconnected in the panel. So, I'm guessing the house once had a heated tile kitchen floor. The previous owners put hickory thought the house. I'm guessing it was abandoned then -- not sure.

Even so, never seen that even as a hack job.

 

[James L]

That looks like a #14 Romex that would have been coming from stat to the j-box. That would have made the Romex part of the heat circuit

 

[Greg1707]

I finally bought a house. I recommend to never move during a pandemic It was worth it really -- got to spend more time with my father in his last couple years.

Fancy house and bigger than we wanted, but the house selection isn't so good these days. At least this one has views and most of what I could see was a solidly built house.

Lots of bells and whistles. I'm programming and reprogramming and fixing all the nits in the house. Most of what I can see was done well and professionally and a number of permits over the years.

On my list to investigate is the thing in the photo and today was the day.

It reads 120V and the braided wires are individual #16 or #14. I think it goes to the kitchen radiant floor. This is the lower level not too far from the kitchen, but it isn't inches away, it is feet away. It goes off to another box with another set of the braided wires leaving it.

I have no experience with radiant floors, but this can't be acceptable??

It looks like there are five braided cables. These are the cold leads to the individual heating floor matts. One one of the NM cables would run from the thermostat to the junction box for all the cold leads. It could be that the second NM cable runs to another junction box? The braided cables should be protected by a raceway. We typically use smurf tube. Given there are a number of different matts this is a way to avoid bringing them all to the thermostat.

 

[tthh]

It looks like there are five braided cables. These are the cold leads to the individual heating floor matts. One one of the NM cables would run from the thermostat to the junction box for all the cold leads. It could be that the second NM cable runs to another junction box? The braided cables should be protected by a raceway. We typically use smurf tube. Given there are a number of different matts this is a way to avoid bringing them all to the thermostat.

Ok, that makes sense. There are two junction boxes. One has a pair of braided leads and the other has 3 pair. It is a big kitchen, so I could see 4 mats. There was circuit coming out of the panel which is feet away and connecting to one box and then fed to the other. The one braided pair box also has a 14/2 NM running to somewhere under the kitchen floor down one of the joist cavities. The 3 braided pair also has a 14/3 NM running to somewhere under the kitchen floor down a different joist cavity. My guess is these NM went to the temperature controls. There's no sign of where the controls were in the kitchen. I removed the NM between the boxes and NM feed from the panel and the, which was disconnected inside the panel anyway. Wire nutted all the indidual conductors, stuck a note inside each box with my analysis and put an "abandonded" label on the outisde of the box.