ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Violation Photo Forum Ice machine conduit 'repair'

At my local CVS their ice machine is outside by the door. No GFCI on the outlet I guess (didn't test it) but what caught my eye was this 'repair' of a piece of broken PVC conduit. Doubt it is 'water tight.'

HAHA, nice, it looks kind offset, was there some kind of pull box there before the duct tape took over??

The power was from above, and there was a box that the line came out of. I reported this to property maintenance which flagged it as 'low priority.'

Looks like the CVS by Five Points, usually after they do their weekly repair of their brick wall car damage.

Ian A.

I think EMT or rigid would have been a better choice. Here you can see the carts and cars run straight into the PVC conduit. You can see the broken splice right above where the cart is leaning on the conduit. PVC is ok, but not in an application like this.

This illustrates one of the 'unenforceable' parts of the NEC.

110.3(A)(1) states that in judging an installation, 'suitavility' shall be considered. Too often, this is limited to looking for a UL lable. That's a mistake, in part because (2) goes on to address the 'adequacy' of the protection. (8), at the end of 110.3, even has a 'catch-all' provision allowing for the consideration of 'other factors.'

110.12(B) addresses the integrety of equipment, saying that there shall be no damaged parts that may affect safe operation.

The second part of the puzzle was that inspections happen only in response to a permit at the time of installation. There seems to be no provision for anyone to act afterwards - even when the failings are not only obvious, they are in a public place (and thus there is no expectation of privacy).

Were I to be asked to repair such an installation, I would consider it a requirement to take the impact of shopping carts into account with my repair. If that meant adding a guard, additional supports, or even changing the wiring method, I would do so. Simply replacing one failed system with another inadequate one does not, IMO, meet your code obligations.

This installation has multiple issues. The receptacle with no cover, being another. I doubt they got a permit for this. I can't see this passing an inspection.

At least they used tapcons.

~Matt

Weatherproof while in use covers (bubble covers) have mixed survival rates. I would have an issue with the one in the pic, as to it's orientation,

That said, once an inspection is completed and approved, I have no 'legal' jurisdiction. The issue falls under 'property maintenance' in a lot of localities. However, situations similar to the pic result in a phone call to the uniformed fire dept inspector, as he/she can write it up as a safety item, and also write $$$ violations if it is ignored.

Re the outlet, a bubble cover would have broken just as fast as the PVC flip lid cover that they used. A better solution is to hide the plug behind the machine.

I called it in to Property Maintenance shortly after the photo was taken. An inspector did go out, and a repair was made. The repair consisted of taking a short piece of flex and connecting the two sections of PVC together with that. Better than duct tape, I suppose. The inspector also made them change out the receptacle with a GFCI and install a bubble cover. Next time I'm down that way, I'll take a picture. Interesting to see the 'real world' solution to some of these code violations.

Not good

I have seen metal bubble covers, there's a place I know that has at least one and it's been there for some time.

You mean duct tape is not UL listed?