These pics are from Ian, TheElectricKid.

I suppose it's best to lead off with a pic of the back of the appliance. It appears someone wasn't sure what the strain relief clip was for:





Then it gets better (or worse!). Looks like there was a bit of remodeling done, and the recep just didn't quite line up with the hole the guy cut in that "expensive" drywall:





Finally, inside the wall, the 'flying receptacle:'

A great argument for permits and inspections.

Dunno... how on earth are you going to inspect cord connected appliances (like the range w/o strain relief) and minor construction stuff like putting up new drywall?
Call for a constrution permit for everything that exceeds hanging a picture using thumb tacks?

Regarding the range one possibility would be to outlaw any modifications by non-licensed electricians other than a) plugging and unplugging stuf and b) changing light bulbs. This is reality in many countries and also some states of the US (I think NYC for example is that strict) and doesn't keep anyone from doing hack jobs.

I think even in the most conscious country I know, Switzerland, this would only fail if somebody reported it.

I live in Massachusetts, if you read the law replacing a receptacle could require a permit and inspection.

Is that how it really works? No.

Instead of a long rant I will just say that IMO the majority of pictures posted on this forum of poor work are from areas that do not have licensing or inspections.

Not to say we don't have licensed hacks but the inspection process helps to slow them down.

To me this argument makes no sense.

To me that is like saying seat belts don't save everyone so don't even bother.

I can't comment on how other countries do it but I can tell you here that inspections reduce the number of bad installations.

The fact that inspectors are failing jobs IMO proves they are catching violations that would have been remained otherwise.

I'm not saying we don't need inspections. I'm just questioning the idea of insepcting EVERYTHING. Usually permits/inspections are only required for work exceeding a certain scope and I think this is quite reasonable.

Besides, Austria does not require permits or inspections (nor does Germany) and I don't think general workmanship is worse than in the US (areas with permits and inspections), BUT only licensed electrical contractors are allowed to do anything beyond plug connected stuff and light bulbs. This seems to work reasonably well. I just wanted to point out measures like this won't completely stop ALL hack work like this.

John, thanks (and nice job) on posting the pics.

Okay, it's obvious what's wrong with the first picture. Rest assured it is now done properly, with the clip actually in the hole.

Second pic is the one that made me yell when we pulled the old range out. The green board was put up by the previous (handyman) homeowner when they remodeled the house back in 1973. It's sized for the original GE range. (Back when appliances lasted more than three years.)

What I wound up doing was shutting the breaker off, and just swapping the cord to the new range, as my mother wouldn't let me pull down the green board (or cut a bigger hole in it) to move the receptacle to the outside of the wall. Oh well, can't win 'em all I guess.

Ian A.

If the job of rewiring recep's or connecting major cord/cap appliances required a permit - I would be a perpetual violator. It's a violation but I don't see how you can set up a legal inspection framework to prevent this kind of thing that's also practical.

Customer: Can you come and inspect my new range?
AHJ: Sorry we are booked through next week?
Customer: I guess I will go without dinner for a week.
AHJ: Well you do need to loose weight!

It's the automotive equivalent of requiring the dealer to adjust your seat position.

Of course not.

But If that was inspected it would not exist as it is.

I agree that the connection to the dryer itself would be tough to inspect but the installation a 30 amp 240 volt outlet should be inspected.

If that had been inspected would it be floating in the wall?

Ann, would you like me to post the law from my state?

Installing a 30 amp 240 volt outlet requires a license, a permit and an inspection.

Sorry if you feel the laws inconvenient.

Assuming the inspector came to have a look at that and found a properly strained cord plugged into a neatly trimmed receptacle would he have:

Called it for grandfathered internal bonding that they made a no no in 1999?
Pulled the cover plate and even the device to check for mis wiring, conductor sizing and grounding of any metal boxes?
Checked the over current protection rating at the panel feeding this device?
Crawled every inch of the branch conductor to insure it was properly supported and any splices were done in an appropriate box(grounded) with cover?
Just said "Looks good from here." and taken the citizens money without a real and true inspection?

I'm not saying having third party verification of a contractors work is unnecessary. I'm sure without any inspectors quality would suffer.
I'm just saying that the ultimate responsibility for a code compliant and safe install falls upon the installer in the end and anyone who's livelihood is on the line is probably going to take that seriously or go out of business.
And even then who's to stop someone from going in behind you and modifying your work rendering it illegal? I saw that it had happened to me just this morning.

How many people will live with a loose receptacle or an iffy switch or even a fixture dangling from the conductors because they can't afford an electrician much less a permit.
Then there's the scheduling process than even seasoned GCs can't get right sometimes and it becomes a very daunting thought to some people. They just might and probably do choose to live with the fire hazard rather than the unknown of what the city/county might throw at them. Or they may attempt it themselves.

And above all nothing short of outright fascism is ever going to stop the motivated homeowner and his neighbor who "knows how" from performing work that varies from very scary to quite impressive.

my 2 cents

Vince

There is a 'tipping point' at which the requirement for permits and inspections make them less likely to happen. If you make the process too difficult or too expensive, then people will do it themselves or not do it at all.

Here in Pa this common place. The appliance delivery guys are the ones who install the cord when they drop off the unit, unless someone is there to do the install or they are told not to. Another good one is the hot tub guys, but thats another story.



Ob

That's it in a nutshell. Recently, I was explaining this to a customer who was afraid that a service upgrade would require a complete rewire. I explained that if replacing a sketchy 60-year old service required gutting the house, no one would do it, and that could only adversely affect safety.

And the whole NEMA 10/NEMA14 thing...

It's a can of worms, but it was a can of worms long before 1999 (actually '96 IIRC). You can't explain the proper way to ground a range or dryer to a DIYer (something that really ought to be dirt simple), because every manufacturer has a different way of making the jumper.

Suppose you remove the bonding jumper and install a four-wire cord. Then the customer moves to an older house, and installs a three-wire cord, but fails to restore the jumper.

Or, suppose the customer buys a Bosch or other European-made dryer, which has no 120V components and therefore requires no neutral. What it does have is a floating neutral terminal that serves only to park the unused conductor, and a NEMA 6-15R on the back for plugging in a 240V washer. There is no jumper from the "neutral" terminal to ground. This particular oddity was not covered in the appliance installer's five-minute training session, so the appliance had no equipment ground, and would still not have one if an electrician had not been called in to relocate the receptacle (since it was a long circuit, wired with 10/2 NM, never code-compliant but long accepted here, I couldn't justify a NEMA 14 upgrade to the customer).

That's not to say that I think the '96 change was a bad idea. The confusion is traceable to 1947, when the practice of grounding an appliance through the neutral became officially sanctioned. The 1940 NEC allowed it only with special permission of the AHJ. Apparently, many inspectors allowed it due to wartime shortage of copper, and it was later formalized.

I personally blame this anomaly for the common practice of blurring the lines between neutral and EGC in subpanels. I wish it were only DIYers who were doing this stuff, but I've seen numerous examples where the offender was clearly an electrician. My codebook collection goes back to 1940, and I can't find where it has ever been legal to ground a subpanel with a neutral.

I received an email today from the Texas licensing authority. Today's news is that appliance installation now requires a license. I'm certain that the NEMA 10/NEMA 14 confusion is responsible for this.

The permitted practice of grounding certain appliances through the neutral was long justified on the basis of the excellent safety record of these appliances, but IMHO this missed the point. For simplicity's sake, we need one rule for services, and another for branch circuits and utilization equipment. I look forward to the day when NEMA 10 is a rare curiosity to be written up on an Electrical Nostalgia thread, but I doubt I'll live to see it.

If you make permits and inspections too complicated, people will DIY without them. If you make the code too complicated, sometimes even the pros will mess it up. And some people will DIY no matter what you do, so doesn't it make sense to make things simple enough that people can understand them?
</rant>

Actually that's the legal requirement in Austria. Do any major changes (and changing a panel already counts as one) and have to bring everything up to code, down to the last receptacle. Of course reality differs a little... most electricians have fairly loose interpretations of what a major change is. The Germans on the other hand are usually far worse - most I know would refuse to add a circuit to a panel older than let's say 30 years without redoing the service.

To quote myself:



Oh bother, I told my mother one of the reasons to remove the board and put the outlet on the surface (thus covering that hole) is that mice love Levittown houses. Lo and behold, the cat got an early dinner last night...

Ian A.

Iwire, like I said I am a perpetual violator - while there are many good reasons to do it we have yet to find one that's practical.