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You Make The Call

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Jim W in Tampa said:
Problem i seen far too often is a helper or even a journeyman was trained by an old timer that was not qualified himself and is teaching the helper wrong ways.
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cowboyjwc said:
Well since the code section is only a couple of cycles old, I know that there are many many many switches out there that are not grounded.
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How old are we talking about here folks, I have been grounding switches since what seems like the beginning of time.

It would be very odd for me too see an ungrounded switch doing service work. If it's an old house with ungrounded branch circuits then yes but most everything I see (switches ) are grounded.

Most electricians just like to ground things that have a ground screw even if not strictly required by code. I guess it gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling to know that things really are grounded.
 
growler said:
How old are we talking about here folks, I have been grounding switches since what seems like the beginning of time.

It would be very odd for me too see an ungrounded switch doing service work. If it's an old house with ungrounded branch circuits then yes but most everything I see (switches ) are grounded.

Most electricians just like to ground things that have a ground screw even if not strictly required by code. I guess it gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling to know that things really are grounded.
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You had to ground the switch only if you were using a metal plate, but then it changed to "...whether or not a metal faceplate is installed."

I think it was new to the 2002.
 
Problem is the teacher might have got his masters 40 years ago and has not kept up with changes. Helper learns from him and soon thinks he knows what he is doing. Not a good situation. I have ran into many of that type of masters and will not work for them. Just not worth the arguments
 
cowboyjwc said:
You had to ground the switch only if you were using a metal plate, but then it changed to "...whether or not a metal faceplate is installed."

I think it was new to the 2002.
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Yes, now I see what you mean. The wording in the code book did change in 2002 and made it mandatory.


For some reason we have been grounding switches here, even without metal face plates, for many years and I guess it was just easier that way. You never know when a metal plate will be installed even in residential. Or it could be that we picked up the habbit doing commercial and just never stopped.

At times it's hard to remember what was actaully code and required and what was just a standard practice.

And they ask why I like to keep old code books, I can't possibly remember all the changes made in the last 30 years. Go back two cycles and I'm lost. ;)
 
growler said:
For some reason we have been grounding switches here, even without metal face plates, for many years and I guess it was just easier that way. You never know when a metal plate will be installed even in residential. Or it could be that we picked up the habbit doing commercial and just never stopped.


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Switches were not commonly available with a grounding means until the 2002 NEC was out. Before then, they were available but was only 1% of sales. Switches were required to have a grounding means as some mfgs were making them with nonmetallic yokes.
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Jim W in Tampa said:
I was using grounded swithes back in 82 when i started in trade . Was no shortage
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Good, because I was beginning to think something was wrong with my long term as well as my short term memory. I wasn't sure how long but I was just thinking is was a time before 2002 and then I found an article where a guy said his house was built in 1996 and the electrician didn't connect the ground terminals. I know it was optional in those days but it seemed to me that we did use the ground terminals.

I guess it just seemed odd that electricains would still not be grounding switches. Kind of like when I learned that people were still useing solder and tape. I know that you can but I still haven't seen it on any new construction however I did see a solder and tape job on a house from the 70s.
 
George Stolz said:
Is this exterior box on a house ready for *rough* inspection?

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Where I live we would wire in the outlet and let it hang out of the box so the inspector could see all the connections. Just be sure its not going to rain befor he gets there.
 
technoid52 said:
Where I live we would wire in the outlet and let it hang out of the box so the inspector could see all the connections. Just be sure its not going to rain befor he gets there.
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So you have learned to control the weather in that part of the country. Great!!!
 
growler said:
I guess it just seemed odd that electricains would still not be grounding switches. Kind of like when I learned that people were still useing solder and tape. I know that you can but I still haven't seen it on any new construction however I did see a solder and tape job on a house from the 70s.
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It's kind of one of those silly things I find. If there are cabinets being installed and there is an outlet going in there, I can bet that at final I can open it and they will have to install a flash guard.

I kind of judge who I'm dealing with by what I don't find.:grin:
 
If this was an EMT job the only thing the Inspector would see is the ground pigtail in an

empty box, the next time the EI saw it, it would be trimmed out. So why is this any different ?

note: a wire egc is required in this area.
 
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