Thanks for the replies!
plastic on plastic...eeehhh where do I begin?
Plastic boxes. I use em' for telephone line, CAT-5, cable tv..all the low voltage stuff, Some of the heavier gauge plastic boxes for conduit are good, but those blue plastic home depot variety... in the real world, they bend the holes strip, it's almost impossible to mount the old work boxes straight, I would HATE to have a warm conductor in there for an outlet, etc...I've pulled em out of kitchen walls melted... in a 3 year old house! At least with AC, the sheath ties to ground and a melted wire trips a breaker! I've pulled a 5 ft length of NM-14AWG out of a kitchen wall all burned and BARE! Puddle of plastic in the wallvoid! Then my safety lecture on armored cable goes off without a hitch. I know why EC's use it... $30 vs. $90 per 250 ft! but it's just not worth it...
Nothing coming out of an ethernet hub is gonna fry CAT-5 plenum rated. I've heard of some phone wires getting warm, likewise for thermostat wire, but nothing too serious. I usually run all my low voltage cables in NM -Rigid conduit pipe anyway, just to keep em' out of harms way in the wall.
Especially since I do a lot of rewiring for a whole room at a time (ex. bedroom converted to home office) I like to use armored cable because the grounded armor also acts as sheilding. The NM-rigid conduit should satisfy 760.55 (B), but sometimes when fishing through narrow wallvoids, I can't run conduit through. In these cases, each wire, for example has gets own hole in a beam, stud, or joist - then back to conduit. These times are where I like the extra sheilding.
Does anyone run a lot of low voltage data cable here? I'd love to hear other methods - especially recommended fire alarm products/installs.
P.s. thank you Scott, I think all accurate information (wether I think I know it r not) is good information! I just wish there was a way of "handing in" well documented experience. I HATE installing crap. Many discussions on this site involve installations that passed where some have justifiable reasons for wanting to do X, and an installation winds up being passed that is not up to the standards of X. No forethought for real safety, just enough to satisfy code.
LAZINESS!! GRRRRR!
flipster
