ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion NEC & other Code issues abandonment

I can understand Joe's position. We always try to pull out the old junk whenever we can.The thing in my mind is when sparkys and ahj's get into a pissing contest no one wins.I know there are plenty of bad ones on both sides.The few counties that have an ahj here, they are good ones and easy to work with. I just wish we had one in my home county to even argue with.

Escuse my spellin, folks, but us narow minded country folk ain't smart enough to lern much past the aithe grade, never mind bein cognosant of the big city inferstrukture problems. Don't got no desks here, neither, use the kitchin tabel to do writin and cipherin. Put the ole puter on it and ring up Mabel down the switchboard to clear the party line - Comin at yah, ma bell, at 56 killobites! I talked to a sparky from East LA online yesturday. We's discussin PPE and work condishuns. I told him bout how ya needs good s&#t boots up here fer all yer barn jobs and ladder hooks when ya work on one of them two story highrisers. I told him horrer stories bout wires runnin thru cow s@#t, open air splicers, and electric fence aksidents. He tells me he's got even worse condishuns. Tells me ya needs somethin called kevlar full body PPE and a H-K MP9 thing on some of his jobs. Says it dont leeve much room fer the tools. Tells me the local folk steals the loominom lamppole covers, ground wires, and even sometimes pull out the LIVE wires -- fer scrapin! Says the other messed up stuff is cause of gangs of delinkwents. Reminds me of them Erickson boys and that slingshot -- anyway, he went on bout the highfalootin rich sparkys who wont even look at a job in his hood, says theys too busy goin to convenshuns and tellin him to fix everthing but the biznusmen and the goverment dont want to pay him to do it. Says he trys to hire good guys but nobody with skils wants to work there and the guys that do aint very good and do cheezy work. Tells me the rich people has even been tryin to succeed from the city so's they aint got to pay taxes to help fix it, too. Says its a real mess and ther just aint no easy solushun. Told me the rich sparkys will get bored with his problems and find somethin else to complane bout in a few days. He figures that the both of us got are share of problems. Says I got my barns and boots and he's got his hood, and both of them kinda stink sometimes, but we's just got to fix em as best we can and not expeckt any real help from dogooders. Pretty sharp feller fer a city boy, that sparky.

editted - had ta fix some mispelt werds

[This message has been edited by Len_B (edited 02-05-2003).]

For the past 15 years or so, the NYCTA (the folks running the run-down subway here in New York City) has been replacing its incandecent platform lighting with modern fluorecent fixtures.

In the old days, they would install the new fixtures and either leave the incandecent bulbs burning until they finally died or disconnect those circuits from the panels.

The lampholders were left in place with their blackened bulbs. Some would eventually get smashed by people throwing rocks at them.

Then the TA started removing the bulbs and inserting what looked like CORKS into the lampholders.

I think this was done in order to prevent the ceiling painters from getting shocked from a potential live lampholder with no bulb (or a broken stump). The lampholder with its cork and everything would get painted right over.

Now they get fancy and remove the fixture, cap off the brittle wires and put a blank plate over the ceiling box. This gets painted over next time the ceiling gets painted. That's how I got one of these fixtures (I asked the guy taking them down if I could have one)

For a truly invisible job, they've taken to removing the lampholders and FILLING IN THE BOX WITH CONCRETE!!!

I don't know if they leave the old wires in there or what because sometimes when I go to a station where the long-defunct incanecent fixtures have been taken down, you see squares where the box was filled in, smoothed out and painted over.

Over time these will blend in to the rest of the soot-covered surface.

There have been times when (and the underground station in my neighborhood is a prime example) where existing conduit has bee re-used.

In my case, some of the old incandesent fixtures were taken down, new wire was fished through, box extenders installed in every-other-box and then the emergency lights (small u-shaped fluorecent boxes) were hooked up to these extenders with a short piece of conduit. The other existing boxes that weren't used were covered with blanking plates.

The subway walls and floors/ceilings are solid masonry, of course....so a lot of add-on newer conduit is surface mounted or suspended by straps from the ceiling.

And then there are the kluges where low voltage wire for communications of some sort or another has been secured with tie wraps to existing pipes (water, electric, gas, who knows).

lol~Len_B.....
Discrimination has many forms, yet to be dismissed as a hick-electrician in an on-line debate is most a most laughable ad hominem attack imaginable.

The fact is, the rural contingent is the higher percentage. Most of us in rural areas are daily ambassadors of the code, simply by default.

While we are out doing our best to present the code as the pillar of safety in the trenches of construction, others pursue frivilous endevors to add to our list.

All to the end of personal notability....

So, paint me as living in a cave , with a kite to my cow's tail for internet connection if you like.

Yet i'll rest assured that in the course of my carear i'll create more electrical safety thru plain old common sense and my own 2 hands, than any consultant blowhard with an ego the size of his a**

yrs
~Steve

Oops! did,nt read the small-town post until now.Well being as we didn't have an inside bathroom in the house until I was about 13,I guess that lumps me in with Len and sparky. As I said before, it would be neat just to see some basic code compliance in my county.

wasn't considered a local until i buried my fifth dog on my spread. as an inspector i like to see the abandoned wiring identified as such and isolated at the panel.see old knob and tube, mineral sheathed,etc. veritable archaelogical sites when inspecting in these parts.leave it all.it's fun to look at down the road!

Welcome!

What part of the country are you from, and where do you serve as the AHJ?