ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Romex and Extension Cords

Romex wicks up moisture. That's a real threat to users of temp power -- where you can just bet that it's an issue.

Romex is acceptable as temp power conductors if and only if it is treated as Romex and not SO cord, etc. That means NMC if water is an issue.

Dragging Romex around like it's SOJ... sheesh -- pure trouble.

Figures. But isn't it often true that:

The plumber's house has leaky faucets.....



The mechanic's car/truck is a piece of junk....




The painter's house needs painting...




And the electrician's house has broken/bad devices/fixtures?


And in my case, I have the only home automation system (AMX touchscreen) where the programming still isn't finished (after three years.) But all my client's programs are up and running.

Back to the main topic.. Romex does make lousy extension cord. And somewhere here on ECN there is a thread where someone used a coiled-up box of romex and it melted down!

Finally on one of my last major installs they used 10/3 NM for the temp lights and it was constantly getting cut/damaged by the trades.

We see the same thing here where our equivalent of Romex has been used as an extension cord. The solid conductors just aren't intended to take the frequent flexing and after a while they fracture at the points which have seen the most movement.



You could do that with flexible as well if you pull enough current through the coil that the heat can't dissipate properly.

I guess that every trade has the same habit of doing better work at work than at home.

At one jobsite meeting that I was at, the woman in charge of estimating costs and schedule blew up at her electrician boyfriend yelling:
"You've RUINED me in this business! Now when I get asked how long an electrician takes to install a doorbell button; I have to tell them 6 MONTHS!!!"
The rest of the meeting went much quieter...