I'm one of those infamous electrical engineers. And in college no course
work on the NEC. I did have classes
on electromagnetic devices like
transformers, motors, generators and
such. Maxwell's equasions and other
physics. Pretty much all theory.
AS I gather, electricians are trained
to create electrical systems that, as
a first priority protect people from
shock and fire hazards, in such a way
that if you do have a failure, that
the rest of the system is built to
protect people. In that light, the
code will make sense to electrical
engineers. Grounding rules, requiring
all wire connections to be done inside
boxes (so if a connection fails it
doesn't shower sparks onto the wood
inside the wall setting it on fire),
color codes (so other electricians can
understand what wire does what by inspection)
and other things that turn out not to
work that well (aluminium wireing) can
be avoided.
I've done simple wiring tasks in my house
(installing more outlets in the new
kitchen we had put in, the inspector
said the only thing I missed was the
green pigtail grounding wires you need
to connect to the metal boxes (I used
"BX" cable (I know "BX" is the wrong term,
forgot what the modern version is called)
and to the green ground screw on the
outlets. He made me put them in and
after that I passed his "rough" inspection.
Must be a newer NEC rule the books in the
library didn't have. Makes sense, you
are then not depending on two #6 steel
screws to pass a fault current to ground).
As for something like installing a new
panel, I think I'd get a licensed electrician
to do that. I'd need to have his knowledge
of the code and his experience to do it
right, and as I don't have that, have him
do it so it is safe and meets code. Oh,
I'd tell him that I'd like to have a
new circuit for a dryer, another for
central air, and some more branch circuits,
but let him figure out the right way to
make it happen.
