Neutral at switch location question

mtnelect said:
My "Public Input" is designed for residential work. since it is mostly done on commercial work already. On residential work, I have never seen wire markers on grounded wiring. The installer just grabs any neutral that is convenient and moves on.

As an example, had a service call on a GFCI receptacle in a bathroom that would trip randomly. Discovered that the installer crossed a neutral on a hall lighting circuit. With out fail, the bathroom GFCI receptacle would trip every time, when the hall light was switched on. Finding that crossed neutral required me to go through every junction box in the house to find it.
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IMO it is not the purpose of the code to try and "brother-in-law proof" things. You can't code you way out of hacks and people who don't know what they are doing doing incorrect electrical work. Nor do I believe in making codes that will make troubleshooting hack work easier to troubleshoot.
 
Other than situations where existing wiring was modified, like when moving an existing panel and you maybe have a larger box with several spliced cables in it, there shouldn't be many times you can mix up neutrals of other circuits other than when a device box contains items on more than one circuit, particularly with cable wiring methods. Raceway methods I can see that sort of mix up happening more often if you are pulling multiple circuits in the raceways.

But you are proposing we need to start stocking and using NM cable that has solid white as well as white with stripe insulation on one of the conductors? Those that are not paying attention or don't know any better will still cross neutrals IMO if that were the rules.
 
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