White Ungrounded Wire

[kwired]

Whomever crawled all the way in there at 3:45 on a friday was like oh darn I grabbed white wire well nobodys ever going to crawl back in here. Now its on MH forums.
The location and accessibility of that fuse seems less than ideal from the photo it looks like its in a unfinished attic, hopefully its in not in the vicinity of easily ignigtable material 240.24(D).

I'd also be concerned about the connections at the fan? Do two white wires end up at the motor?

I think majority of us think the white conductor is wrong, but the so called switch loop concept here for tapping a feeder is what is debatable.

I have no issue with it from a code perspective and have nothing I can think of to cite as a violation other than the use of the white conductor.

 

[tortuga]

Its basically the same thing as having a small loadcenter in your attic or crawlspace and pulling branch circuits out of it.

 

[TwoBlocked]

Who is to say there is an grounded conductor in the circuit. It could be one leg for a 240V heater.

 

[CoolWill]

Who is to say there is an grounded conductor in the circuit. It could be one leg for a 240V heater.

Well if that's the case, I'd say there's even more problems.

 

[kwired]

Who is to say there is an grounded conductor in the circuit. It could be one leg for a 240V heater.

If this is providing the branch circuit overcurrent protection then it should have brought both ungrounded conductors through an overcurrent device. If it is just a control switch, it is kind of expensive way of doing so but a single pole switch is sufficient for control.

That said I believe the OP clarified it is a feeder tap to a line to neutral load. We can't really judge what we can't see about this install, the only thing that is wrong from what we can see is use of the white conductor as an ungrounded conductor.

 

[tortuga]

I honistly could care less about the white wire I'd be more concerned with overcurrent devices in an attic 430.107, 240.24(D), 110.26 etc.

 

[kwired]

I honistly could care less about the white wire I'd be more concerned with overcurrent devices in an attic 430.107, 240.24(D), 110.26 etc.

Possibly an issue but I'd need more details about this attic before claiming there is absolutely a problem here.

 

[jaggedben]

300.3(B) requires that each raceway contain both the hot and neutral conductors which is certainly not the way the installation in the photo is installed since the neutral is not run with the ungrounded conductor to the switch. This is no the same as a switch loop with a 2-wire cable running to a single pole switch.

I have run into this interpretation and I really hate it. It is wrong for the reasons others said, but mainly because of how the code section you cited says 'where used'. The neutral (if there even is one) is not used at the switch. Looping the neutral (if there is one in and out of the switch would be a waste of wire with no purpose or benefit.

 

[xguard]

Possibly an issue but I'd need more details about this attic before claiming there is absolutely a problem here.

The attic has flooring and there's nothing to crawl over to get to the fused disconnects. They're also all next to the loads they serve.

 

[tortuga]

The attic has flooring and there's nothing to crawl over to get to the fused disconnects. They're also all next to the loads they serve.

What equipment is "likely" to require adjustment, servicing or maintenance while energized always a interesting AHJ call (presumably your the AHJ?). Here that install would probably need to meet 110.26(A) since its a feeder tap.

 

[jap]

If tapped from a 50a feeder then wouldn't the size of the EGC tap need to be increased also?

JAP>