ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Old farm overhead still legal?

I was called out to a job that had 2 single conductors (#12 or #10) ran from the farm house to a small out building. The run was about 90 ft from the house to a utility pole then to the building on insulators. A tree branch came down and broke the hot wire. My question is it still legal to run a circuit this way. The circuit is a 20 amp and only operates a single liht and outlet inside the building. The only code reference I could find was NEC 225.6(a) The house is located in a small town in northeast Ohio. Thanks for the help.
Don

Hi Don,

Welcome to the board.

I run into this type of wiring all the time here in rural Nebraska.

If the wire is damaged or bare I would replace the entire length with triplex O.H. That is standard procedure for us.

GJ

No ground for the receptacle?

Redsy,
no there is no groung. The outlet is an old 2 wire type. This wiring was installed about the late 1940's early 1950's. The owner wants a new wire installed to replace what was broken by the tree limb. I wasn't sure if it was still legal to run wire this way. I did consider triplex but running a single conductor was a cheaper out for these older folks. Thanks for the replies.