ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion NEC & other Code issues 2011: Tamper Resistant Receptacles

I tell folks that theu are free to sue me for all I have, it won't take long!

It's no accident Chavy got sued, and not, say, Joe's body shop or Yugo Motors. Simply put: the lawyer saw a chance of making money with little work.

Safety is not a simple matter of installing the latest gee-gaw. Nor have we any obligation to do more than what is required, or agreed to. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Is there a lawyer problem? Perhaps. When McDonalds is getting sued for having coffee both too hot, and not hot enough .... it's amazing anyone sells coffee anymore!

Few things as 'safety' are as fraught with unintended consequences. A good example is a product called "saw stop." The inventor saw a need to reduce table saw injuries, with the intent of licensing it to saw makers. His money expectations were never an issue; rather, every maker had the idea nixed by the legal department, often using reasoning like what was seen in the above example.

That is, the company was legally 'safer' if they did not offer or use the invention.

A true believer, the inventor is now in the saw manufacturing business. He has yet to receive permission to make retro-fit kits from other manufacturers. So - as so well demonstrated a few months back by a neighbor - fingers continue to be lost, and hands mangled.

If you make all your decisions based on the chance of being sued you must have been using GFCI protection everywhere for the last quarter century.

Gentlemen:

We have to live with TR devices in resi, in 'all' locations, under the '08, and into the forseeable future; like it or not.

The 'intent' of the OP for this thread is the proposed requirements into comm/industrial for '11 ROP's.

Without reading the ROP, sounds like the 'in-plant' day care area?: or ?? for ind.

THe 'comm' could range from retail stores? to offices? and what about bring your son/daughter to work day?

Perhaps we should think about sometime in the forceeable future the only devices we could purchase and install are TR's.

I suspect that you are right about non-TR devices. Sort of like trying to buy a 1-15R. You can still find them but they cost more than the 5-15.
Once these really hit the mainstream they will probably be 50 cents but I worry about the quality. I have a couple of those P&S devices on the promo card with the adapter you can try them with. They work fine but I wonder what happens when they start shopping for a cheaper vendor to hit a lower price point.

Greg:
I've seen 'offshore' items (with UL tags) GFI's, block devices, etc, that are IMHO quality trash. The pricing on these items is attractive to the EC's, bought direct, not thru a supplier.

The issue of callbacks for 'device failure' should be factored into the 'bargain pricing'.

With the TR devices, failure is going to be less evident, and the protection the design intent was to provide will be 'false safety'.

The NEC is sort of heading in that direction. I wouldn't be surprised to see that as a requirement for all circuits in residential construction within the next 10 years.

Edit to add: I saw a demonstration of Saw Stop. Wow! That is an impressive device. It really worked.

John the failure won't be evident if they fail "open" but I bet TRs will get stuck closed and it will become very apparent. I wonder what the effect is if you do force a plug in. My guess is it destroys the device.
How long does an EC warranty an installed device?

Greg:
I see device failure at final inspection, and occasionally I have a HO call after CO.

The Ec's warranty is thru the builder, the 'big' builders have a warranty dept, neither of which I have any involvement with.

My above comments are based on failures at finals, which may or may not be swapped out while I'm there.

John,

How many times have you seen a GFI receptacle not work on a final inspection? I always get the same answer when I inspect on a final. The answer goes something like this, " The GFI was working yesterday! I guess some one used it today and blew it out. I will replace it tomorrow. Are you going to pass the job today?" Another time I got an answer like this. "It was from that bad batch from X country!" (This was a very large job, 10 buildings 5 stories each, 23 apt. per floor.) The EC bought 2 large batches of GFI's one group of GFI's were manufactured in oriental country, and one batch was made in a South American country. It seems that the one country had all of the bad GFI's and the second country didn't.

I didn't care which country it came from, the job failed until the GFI worked.

i've been using TP now for a while

seems one gets one'struck stocked up with a certian brand widget, and simply uses them on all jobs & serv calls

i really don't have a prob with the TP devices

what i do have a problem with is how our trade (or perhaps i should say the manufacturing masters of it) quantify any new safety device.

there exists no unbiased gauge for this, all i hear is anecdotal testimonial and fluff.

all the trade mags are also primarilly owned by the manufactures (which is why we get them for free) , as well as all the writers obviuously being too intimidated to opine in the negative

so yeah, i'll try to be compliant, that's my job

(anyone else have trouble stuffing 24 afci's in a 40 cir panel, and keeping it neat here?)

but don't try and sell me safety based on $$$ in some ceo's back pocket

sorry, that dog don't hunt....

~S~