Interesting Things I Found Recently

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George Stolz

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Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
Dang it Peter, you beat me to it. I was about to say, "Okay, that attic looks like my work." :D

The only time I have ever stapled romex down across the top of ceiling trusses is turning a corner (holding it off the truss plate) or running in line with the truss (necessary, or the romex lays on the floor).

I know it is a technical code violation, and will honestly say that I sleep well.

I've always held the belief that if you trip on stapled romex, you will damage the romex. If you trip on unstapled romex, there is more give and less likelihood of damage. I'm a clumsy guy, so that's what I base perspectives on. Protect within 6' of the hatch and forget about it, is my opinion.
 

tallgirl

Senior Member
Location
Glendale, WI
Occupation
Controls Systems firmware engineer
georgestolz said:
I've always held the belief that if you trip on stapled romex, you will damage the romex. If you trip on unstapled romex, there is more give and less likelihood of damage. I'm a clumsy guy, so that's what I base perspectives on. Protect within 6' of the hatch and forget about it, is my opinion.

I happen to share your opinion about tripping over stapled Romex being more dangerous than tripping over unstapled Romex. I could care less about damage to the wire -- I'm more concerned with me (or someone else) falling through the ceiling.

This is the approach I prefer to take -- stapling it to the side of the joists. I think it gives a much nicer looking finish, and a lot more stoage space in the attic. Most of the houses I work on are smaller -- this one is 1200 sqft -- and storage space is at a premium, so having a nice, usable attic is important to me.

GarageRuns.jpg
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
tallgirl said:
I happen to share your opinion about tripping over stapled Romex being more dangerous than tripping over unstapled Romex. I could care less about damage to the wire -- I'm more concerned with me (or someone else) falling through the ceiling.

This is the approach I prefer to take -- stapling it to the side of the joists. I think it gives a much nicer looking finish, and a lot more stoage space in the attic. Most of the houses I work on are smaller -- this one is 1200 sqft -- and storage space is at a premium, so having a nice, usable attic is important to me.

GarageRuns.jpg

what is that blue cable stapled next to the romex?
 

tallgirl

Senior Member
Location
Glendale, WI
Occupation
Controls Systems firmware engineer
dcspector said:
Julie, I just hope those trusses are rated for storage.....:grin:

Personally, I think those trusses are a disaster when it comes to storage. I despise the stupid things and think they are primarily responsible for the explosion of "Self-Storage" units ;)
 

kc8dxx

Senior Member
Location
Ohio
I was kinda shocked to see several new houses being put up in our area ... and they all used stick framing. Their new owners will be spoiled with an attic that can actually hold something in it.
 

dcspector

Senior Member
Location
Burke, Virginia
Yea Julie, I was "kinda kiddin Ya" and I know it is not your responsibilitiy as an EC (for structural ratings that is) except for your wiring protection around attic accesses 320.23
 

dcspector

Senior Member
Location
Burke, Virginia
Residential....not enough to worry about :grin: and they are "spaced" a little. But now that I look at that Cat5e......Non code issue.....But may get a little "EMF" out of that and may cause "cross talk" in the voice data....Just a thought.....Oh man here we go.
 

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
dcspector said:
may get a little "EMF" out of that and may cause "cross talk" in the voice data.
I can still remember the elegantly simple math an EE professor went through on the black board that, from start to finish, showed how a twisted pair cancelled induced signal.

If the blue wire were the old style parallel untwisted conductors, that would be a very different story.
 

dcspector

Senior Member
Location
Burke, Virginia
Al, so that means when the twisted pair Cat is ran with AC 120v to ground "grouped up" so to speak it still is cancelled out? I Thought it just cancelled itself thru the DC phone system "Tip and Ring"...:confused:
 

tallgirl

Senior Member
Location
Glendale, WI
Occupation
Controls Systems firmware engineer
dcspector said:
Al, so that means when the twisted pair Cat is ran with AC 120v to ground "grouped up" so to speak it still is cancelled out? I Thought it just cancelled itself thru the DC phone system "Tip and Ring"...:confused:

That's not Cat5 as I recall. I'm pretty sure it was Cat3, but I could be wrong -- I should be back there in a week or three, assuming the sheetrock peeps finish their work any time soon. Someone else ran all of the telephone wiring on account of I was busy working in the living room and kitchen.

Al's right -- UTP ("unshielded twisted pair") is self-cancelling. I try to avoid running data near power "just because". But in an eon or two or working with UTP, I've never had a problem if I had to run it near the sorts of wires shown in that photo.
 

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
dcspector said:
Al, so that means when the twisted pair Cat is ran with AC 120v to ground "grouped up" so to speak it still is cancelled out? I Thought it just cancelled itself thru the DC phone system "Tip and Ring"...:confused:
Yes.

It was one of those light bulb moments for me, sitting in that classroom. I can still see it.

Cat3, Cat5, Cat6 twist rates won't matter. The external field, outside of the twisted pair, when passing through each "half twist" induces a signal that is cancelled out by an equal and opposite induced signal in the next half twist.
 

tallgirl

Senior Member
Location
Glendale, WI
Occupation
Controls Systems firmware engineer
al hildenbrand said:
Cat3, Cat5, Cat6 twist rates won't matter. The external field, outside of the twisted pair, when passing through each "half twist" induces a signal that is cancelled out by an equal and opposite induced signal in the next half twist.

Okay, so this is an area of electricity that eludes me.

Why, if the twist rate doesn't matter, do Cat3, Cat5 and Cat6 have different twist rates? I've never touched Cat4, so I plead Cat4 ignorance ...
 

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
In a nutshell, the differences enable acceptable higher frequency signal at the end of a length limit. Also, the higher the design frequency, the more precise the physical and electrical relationship between each conductor in a pair must be.

You've probably noted that each pair in a 4-pair CATx cable have a twist rate that is different than the other pairs in the same cable. This, again, is taking advantage of the "self cancelling" nature of being twisted to minimize crosstalk within the cable.
 

tallgirl

Senior Member
Location
Glendale, WI
Occupation
Controls Systems firmware engineer
Al,

Thanks for your more than excellent explanations. And no, I've never stripped CatAnything far enough back to notice that the twist rates between pairs are different, but now I have this uncontrollable urge to do so :D
 

shockare

Member
Location
New York
Its a Shame.

Its a Shame.

Looks like the work i see here in PA.

I just recently move from New York City to PA, Being a former Union man, We went by the book. Here In Pa Its what ever flys by the "local Town inspecter" Blind as he is he could not find a $100 dollar bill stuck to his shoe.

It shocked the hell out of me. To learn that no license is needed to call your self an Electrician. Just hang a sign out front get a van and go to work. I started working for a small company that employs some young guys, Each time I spot a violation i point it out. I get back thats how we always do it and whats NEC?

Half my day is spent teaching and running the job. Now i am just the old man to them. Mind you i just start working with them 2 weeks ago! Some examples are Boxes Overloaded, Services not guarded, hanging fixtures with no box, feeding other rooms from kit ckt, and The best one of all is the holes they bore thur floor joists a 3" hole in a 2x6, 2" in a 2x4 many more.

If your going to buy a home in PA beware "Fly by nights are all over"
just my 2 cents.
 

bstoin

Senior Member
welcome to my world

welcome to my world

:confused: Thanks for the pictures...these are examples of what I see on almost a daily basis. I honestly don't know what is happening to our trade...there are too many pretenders who take life safety for granted. I have always looked at our trade as the most important as far as safety is concerned...I have seen too many dangers to even begin to give all my experiences, but here are some of my most recent examples:

MC cable open spliced and exposed to a piece of romex, an "electrician" wired a branch circuit with duplex outlets to the high leg of a delta connected system (properly marked with orange tape, I might add) which burned up a personal computer and a coffee maker, an "electrician" feeding a fishtape from a hot panel with openly exposed lugs...the fishtape made contact with one of the lugs causing the familiar small explosion, the same "electrician" then proceeded to make the very same mistake AGAIN (Ihad to replace two 150 amp fuses feeding the panel, I had to get rid of one of my helpers very recently when he took an entire afternoon (over 3 hours) to install 2 flourescent fixtures in an open ceiling with the pipe and wiring already in place, I could continue but I don't want to depress anyone further.
 
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