Ampacity of Phone Wire? - ECN Electrical Forums

via Joe Tedesco

Quote

You'll love these. The switch is wired with doorbell wire #18, to the
light. There is also wiring with telephone wire 24/4 to other 120v
applications.

The service cable shown in the panel is welding cable. Note the separation
of the conductors. The service feeders at the inside panel is not the same
as the welding cable outside at the service main. There are no apparent
j-boxes. It appears the conductors are spliced somewhere in one of the
walls. No grounding conductor is present either. A young lady just
bought this home unaware of the electrical hazards that exist. The service was
updated a few years ago.

Craig Park
Salt Lake City, Utah

[Linked Image]

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 07-01-2005).]

WTH?! I predict a fire in this guy's future O.o

Yikes!

I've seen both bellwire and phone wire used for 240V wiring over here too.

What were these people thinking? [Linked Image]

Me too... old cloth wire, neutral, switched phase and phase up to ceiling light. cloth wire phase and neutral across the ceiling and down to wall sconce. from walls conce THHN buried in plaster to buried twist'n tape splice, continuing with 0,3mm2 zip cord (supposedly taken from a model railway) to another buried splice, continuing with cloth wire to a standard ungrounded receptacle...

One of them welding cables are going thru the proper KO, the other isn't.
Other side of the coin, are you sure that that is actually welding cable?.
I thought welding cable had 250+ strands of fine wire in it, that's what makes it flexible.

Prev. owner: "Hey the light worked, I used a box, what's the problem?" [Linked Image]

I think Trumpy's right, that doesn't look like welding cable to me either...look at the close-up of the terminations, the strands look too big to be welding cable. It looks more like some really old fabric-covered NM (6-3 maybe?) with the covering removed.

Whomever did the service change should be forced to correct this!!

Geez! Who inspects this area? [Linked Image]

Ryan,
Inspector in the Salt Lake City area

Ryan-- doesnt look like anybody did.

Don't think thats welding cable either, can't really see is it AL or CU? (old age and bad eyes)

mxslick,

Quote

It looks more like some really old fabric-covered NM (6-3 maybe?) with the covering removed.

I hadn't thought of that permutation. [Linked Image]

Exactly how would cable insulation like that stand up to air-borne moisture, considering that this unit is outdoors.
Oh and one other thing, Joe posted an image of the IEC "Test Finger" up in the General Discussion Area.
I'd be interested to see the box and switch pass the test with the Finger.
No cheating now. [Linked Image]