Photo's and information submitted by Check Pilot:







Thanks Dave!.

I had a service call once for 'lights out' and found that the Customer had finished his basement with cord like this. He did it because he heard NM shouldn't be subject to damage so he thought the cord would be a better choice.

Bill

You can also see the nice Phillips head wood screw with it's nice sharp pointy end in the lower left of the octagon box that was used to secure the fixture. That little piece of hardware had pierced through the hot conductor at one time and shorted out the cable to the bonded conductor. I'm happy that at least the minimal ground connection to the box saved the day.

It probably saved alot of time after dropping and losing the original screw to just use one that happened to be handy in the ol' tool pouch.

Looks to me that there's a suspended ceiling above this outlet box so I don't see anything wrong with this installation other than the how the wire was installed into the box. Taking out the NM clamp, and knocking out the KO is a pain, I know, but still.

Also, I'd like to see a green hexhead screw used for grounding the box. 1978 huh, I always thought that type of romex was much older. I've been wiring since 1990, so.

wow, i have yet to see such a wonderful installation. i mean such care was taken in making sure the wire was properly plastered into the wall. and come on at least they used wire nuts this time not just tape.

But Joe Bob, don't you think he should have come into the box through a proper twist-out and clamp? There's one available about three-quarters of an inch from where he's coming into the box.

Shockme77,

He said this was an old extension cord, it's not Romex.

Bill

That is older romex going horizontally on the wood above the box, I say 1968 is more likely to be correct, unless someone dug out a box of NM that was "just laying around". .

... Had the "pleasure" of actually finding a roll of this old Rx in an attic I was in, it was 14/2 WITHOUT a ground!!..it looked like a silver snake all coiled up with its grey/silver scales, useless to me other than the "vintageness" attached to it... Maybe I'll sell it on E-Bay..

...BTW,..what's the REAL romex doing in there,..is it a switch loop??
Russ

[This message has been edited by Attic Rat (edited 12-31-2005).]

> ...BTW,..what's the REAL romex doing in there,..is it a switch loop??

I hope not; it loks like it is in parallel with the feed and fixture. I'd guess the Romex is the feed, and the extension cord was added to power another fixture later on.

i should think 400.8 would come into play using a cord that way.

[This message has been edited by trekkie76 (edited 01-01-2006).]

All the conductors in the octagon box are in parallel and feed the light and the "extension cord" stuff goes on to feed a fluorescent light suspended in the ceiling tile grid.

The blue coloured romex is part of the original wiring in the house. All of the original NM is blue like the one you see and it is still in surprisingly good shape and is not very brittle at all yet. This stuff was pretty common around the Edmonton, Alberta area in 1978 when I was still in the trade full time.

And yes, the whole bit of this "innovative" wiring has been removed and replaced with nice shiny new NMD 90. It's getting a bit monotonous checking things out around our house, because I found about 5 more code violations including bare conductors in the attic on some more of the cord going into the living area to feed the china cabinet lights. Someone stripped the cover off the romex and soldered the cord conductors to the romex conductors and just left it laying there on top of the insulation in the attic. That got replaced RIGHT away.

Ahh ya, that old romex! that stuff is messy as heck to work with as well..
I have seen that stuff all over here in my city, and the last I saw it installed
was in the late 70's or early 80's when me 'pops wired up the basement.. Have seen it in almost every colour too, I don't know the reason, probably different manufacturers, but shiny silver, dull grey, black, blue, green, brown and orange were common, and I have seen it in both copper and aluminum conductor... ( gotta love the 70's eh)!!

Oh yeah, gotta love the use of the cord!
Full marks for the person spending the coin using what looks like "SO" cabtire and not sacraficing a dollar store extension cord!


A.D