ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Occupational Safety Discussion Safety - Boon or Burden?

well i would quite agree on the new construction/flip this house comparative Bigplanz. Personally, i've installed more GFI's on older circuitry because it seemed to be the safest bang for the customers buck

i'd also like to see those big insurance companies meet the consumer half way here and conceed to afci's on some of that K&T circuitry

oh and, btw, i tried arguing myself out of a service upgrade on one of those same old FPE split buss deals , claiming 'main' meant more than one in the n.e.c.

didn't fly, they had me change it out anyways....

~S~

Question: isn't it true that in Chicago all single family residential wiring has to be in EMT? No romex, and limited use of FMC is the norm, as I have heard/read. Are they 'safer' because of it? Frankly, this seems an over-design for a residential installation, and no doubt is more costly to install. Still, it undoubtedly provides better physical protection than just romex. Do electricians in Chicago object to this as an overly burdensome requirement of bureaucracy?

You've hit a very good point here: most codes I know of allow for additions to existing work without bringing everything up to code as long as there are no substantial changes. The new work has to comply to present codes. From a German/Austrian point of view that means: you can install additional lights and receptacles off existing circuits, you can run new circuits, even replace the panel, but you can't install new receptacles without ground fault protection, period. The latter is a little bitter for many German customers, since 2 wire setups with combined neutral and ground (like old US 3 wire dryer circuits) make it impossible to use a cheap main RCD and necessitate the use of very expensive GFI receptacles (about three times the price of a main RCD but one might need several if the new receptacles can't be put on the load side of one of the new receptacles).

So, in most cases the "grandfathered in" paragraph saves the day, but in some cases it isn't enough. On the other hand it just makes additions(!) more expensive, not making the existing work a little safer (which is what we're talking about here). The aforementiond 2 wire setups are about the only case where it's real hard to improve the safety of existing wiring short of a full rewire.

i find the concept of grandfathering to be a study initself Tex Ranger. This is where one could easily apply what i call enforcement disparity.

please bear with me for an example...

quite a while back i lived in a town that was literally mired in the repetitive curse of the worst urban renewal there is...Fire

This went on until two FF's were kia.

The fire dept made an appeal to the powers that be, and were summarilly deputized to impose fire codes upon the public. This meant any public buildings , apartments, stores , etc.

They in fact did such a good job that they put themselves out of business as a Fire dept, ending up answering more alarm investigations than anything else

(and i wonder if the great Chicago fire could be a similar scenario Bigplanz...?)

The economic reprecussions became increasingly apparent as time went on. Apartment housings told to come up to code became more expensive to live in, so people simply went across the river (this was a border town) to live

Potential Businesses confronted with an extensive list of fire codes simply went elsewhere as well

Thus, out of sheer economics the lifeblood of the town started drying up, empty store fronts were common downtown, the populance followed employment , the tax base suffering the consequense as well....

The powers that be tried to kick up a revitalization program, where potential businesses could jump through X amount of bearacratic hoops to obtain funding for life safety improvements. Yet it was easier to simply cross the river, and open doors in a state who's enforcement was lax

Eventually the FD decided on a 'work with us' approach, simply asking for ongoing improvements in lieu of overnight upgrades

A happy medium you ask? imho, it's necessary within what will probably always be an apples/oranges system.

even were it all magically same/same, people's livelyhood(s) are a consideration

conversley, and in a broader world view, outsourcing prositutes the complete lack of the institution(s) of safety doctrines, readily witnessed in any walmart's goods made by chineese kids for a bowl of fish heads a day



~S~

Code history and emphasis does have an impact on what requirements are established within a jurisdiction. Kentucky has some codes (plumbing, for example) that are uniform state wide, but some can be tailored to local conditions/concerns. I am unfamiliar with Chicago's code history, but I imagine the great fire had some impact on their code adoption process. Of course, the great fire was an impetus, in general, for the creation of building codes in general and happened prior to the development of electric systems.

Whatever the case, individual jurisdictions can create more or less stringent codes, up to a point. In the example of the economic decline of a city after the fire department began stringent inspection and enforcement of a fire code, I can only say that there are too many variables that could possibly effect economic prosperity to tell if code enforcement is the bad guy there. After all, I could take you to plenty of place in Kentucky that have no codes of any kind in place and they are desperately poor and run down.

Codes and regulations, then, are a balancing act and are continually scrutinized and revised from the perspective of technological advances (GFCI, etc), identified problems in existing systems (aluminum wiring correlated with increased fire risk) and local conditions (the example of two FD personnel KIA in a fire, for example).

Tragedies like this definitely effect code requirements. Haven't seem aluminum wiring approved for much of anything since this happened.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090314/NEWS01/903140392/1008/NEWS01

There are a lot of instances here in Chicago of Code items that were adopted to head off that 'once in a blue moon' incident from reoccuring or to protect folks from their own stupidity, but there are also a lot of things that make sense.

The requirement for EMT means that it's a WHOLE lot harder to poke a nail through a conductor; also, if the insulation gets nicked or fails the conductor will short to the metallic raceway and immediately trip the breaker.
It's also quicker to repair. Pulling out the wires and pulling new ones in is significantly quicker than ripping up wallboard to replace NM cable.

And yes...I will grant you that some of our Code items have interesting histories.

I’m sure EMT is a safer installation that Romex, but the question is: what is the appropriate ‘code requirement’ for a ‘safe’ installation? In most jurisdictions including Louisville, Romex is considered safe enough for wiring a single family house, if properly installed (key proviso). An owner of a structure could bid out a job requiring EMT for a new Single Family Residential house, but that would be his or her choice. We as the regulating authority can always approve an installation that more than meets the minimum requirement. Are installation costs a lot higher in Chicago? Are there problems with people going with non-licensed ‘handy men’ to wire a structure with Romex because of Chicago’s EMT requirement? One of the objections I am reading to code requirements is that they make an installation ‘less safe’ because the lower cost of an unqualified installer and sub-code compliant materials makes it harder for qualified persons to successfully bid on jobs. Is this an accurate statement in Chicago or in other jurisdictions?

I can tell you that a lot—a whole lot—of Single Family Residential wiring jobs are done here without permits, either by the home owner who goes to Lowes, buys a ‘how to book’ some wire and does it him or herself or by handy men who will do a simple job for a small amount of money. In a house I rented once, I needed an outlet in the basement for a new freezer. I called the landlord and asked him to send his electrician over to install one, and that I’d pay for it. He said, “Oh that would cost way too much for such a simple thing. You can do it yourself if you want to; I know you know how.”

I thought that was a pretty strange answer; given it was his house that would burn down if I screwed it up. 

Whatever the answer, EMT is definitely safer than just Romex, though requiring rigid pipe would be safer still. Obviously, the jurisdiction makes the ultimate decision as to what is safe enough. The NEC just sets (establishes) the minimum requirements for what the authors believe are ‘safe’ enough.

Here is an example of multiple failures that led to a fatal accident. However, neither the wiring standards nor the materials used are not to blame for this accident. There were multiple mistakes, all of which compounded each other: metal studs were used (not grounded to the service panel allowing an open fault), Romex not properly installed, and a drywall screw that was pierced the jacket of the Romex. That the house passed preliminary and final inspection (after the fatality) makes the whole thing an even greater ‘cluster.’

http://www.clickorlando.com/money/7302637/detail.html

Be sure to click on the video story and you will see the details. (Though unrelated to the accident, my keen eyes tell me that the vent hose the dryer installer was using doesn’t meet building code either, though that type of hose is used all the time.)

So, is the 2008 NEC too strict? Not strict enough? About right? I sense many of you feel it goes too far, but as for myself I am not convinced it places an onerous burden on the costs of new construction.

gawd, 1/2 my biz is fixing what they did here BigPlanz

and you know i can't help but feel that they constitute a substaintial portion of the statistical collection of electrical mishaps pursuant to new codes

so we have this wierd cyclical occurance, the bad guys create codes that we have to uphold

and in many cases , we have to uphold with zero backup

i mean, so much for the market being self corrective eh?

~S~

Well, it looks we've re-discovered what inspired this thread in the first place!

That is, the horrors we correct would not have been allowed in 1940 - let alone now! I just don't see, for example, the dangers of Edison base fuses and K&T wiring ... at least, not as compared to OVERfusing and duct-taped flying splices. Plus I don't feel particularly at risk having my bathroom receptacle as part of a general lighting circuit (receptacle is part of the fixture).

i keep thinking somone in 2040 is going to see my panel sticker and think of me as a real neanderthal , had it made with those 'old millenium' codes and all Reno....~S~