ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area 12-3 woes

Bought a 250' roll of 12-3 rx about 2 months ago. Used it for home runs to kitchen and upstairs baths. Stipped and crimped at boxes but left as is at panel. Used the remaining 50 ft. or so on an upgrade last week. During change over, as i was stripping at panel noticed peeling and cracking on the outer sheathing of both black and red wires. The black was splitting so bad that i saw copper.. Luckily I was able to redo those pulls. I checked the rest of the coil, and sure enough the same. Then I remembered using that coil at the house, which has already been rocked, skimmed and half painted. Checked at the panel and saw the same. I am in the process of contacting southwire to make sure they know of the problem, and get compinsated for pulling new cable. Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem. Here they only require you to strip/crimp at devices, not at panel for rough. I think from now on I will do it at both, for my own piece of mine..
John

Hi, John.

Wow -- I hear you on the compensation for pulling new cable, etc. Of course, the obvious issue here is at what stage something like this happened (Manufacturing, transportation, storage, etc.) to track it down and stop it from happening again!

Was this the "yellow jacket" 12/3? Do you have enough jacket left to get the printing (if you can even read it) with the date and other information?

I did notice that the insulation on the 12/3 conductors (the yellow-jacketed cable) have a different look to them as compared to other NM from Southwire. Maybe it's the shade of red...

What was used to remove the cable sheathing? (Did you do the work yourself?) Just curious.

Thanks.

As for compensation, requesting X rolls of [whatever you use most] replacement cable to cover your efforts may be more amendable to the manufacturer. They may want the damaged stuff back—keep a few feet ‘just in case.’

Oh yeah, got about 30' of original cable, like an idiot through away the wire from the upgrade. ThinkGood, it was the yellow jacketed cable, and I still have the wire in the house to show a rep.
John