ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Resi light circuits

Asked this before in the middle of another thread; guess it got lost in the shuffle.
Is it code compliant to feed power to a light
fixture and run wire(s) to the switch to control it? If not, please site code section.
Thanks.

Perfectly legal. Make sure you comply with 200.7(C)(2)

Is it code compliant? I'm not going to tell you but rather ask you why you think it wouldn't be. Lets see if we can get you to figure it out for yourself.

-Hal

Isn't this scenario just a 'loop-in'?

White 'Line' lamp (box) to switch - taped Black.
Black, load to lamp.

The loop-in method has been pretty much the de facto standard for many years here in Britain.

The only possible drawback is that if someone starts fiddling around with the fixture believing it to be dead because they've turned it off at the wall switch, they could get a nasty surprise. But then if they don't realize there could still be power there, they shouldn't be messing around with it, so I don't see any problem.

Interesting though Paul the subtle difference between the loop-in colo(u)r coding between the US and UK. When using normal ‘Romex’ style cable for the switch loop in the UK the hot coloured wire is used as the ‘line’ and the neutral wire (taped hot) is used as the switched return ‘load’. Exactly the opposite coding is used in the US – does anyone know why this is?

I understand that for commercial work in the UK, one can obtain twin plus ground cable with two hot coloured wires specially for loop-ins.

Hi Hutch. I think the reason that you are required to use the white as the pwer to the switch an d not from the switch is so you don't end up with two white wires connected to your light, one grounded (white) and one ungrounded(white).

By following 200.7(C)(2) you would have one grounded (white) and one ungrounded (black).

For what its worth, in my opinion in the case of 2 wire romex it is much more obvious to use the white wire as the line that is grouped with the hots and run to the switch and the black wire as the line from the switch to the fixture. As was pointed out in the last post the wiring at the fixture has the normal "black and white" wires run to it. More importantly, the white wire grouped with the hots gives the fact away that the white wire is being used as part of a switch leg and the black wire joined with it in the romex should be attached to the fixture -- makes doing any trouble shoot work a snap.

Thanks all, for the feedback.I asked because every EC I've worked for said to feed the power to the switch.I like it that way, also
as sited by Pauluk,homeowner thinks w/ switch off the fixture is safe,but...

I don't have to mark the white used to feed a switch black.

Bob